


2 - Let the Storm Wash the Plates

by saltysarah



Series: For I Still Live [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: A Plotpoint More Than Anything, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Relationships, Bullshit Genetics, Canon-Typical Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Soldiers, Cuddles are a Medical Prescription, Even More Unreliable Than the Last Part, Eventual Happy Ending, Family Feels, Gen, Minor Character Death, Misunderstandings, Obi's Self-Esteem (or lack thereof), Planet Melida | Daan (Star Wars), Pre-Relationship, Stewjoni!Obi, That's Not How The Force Works (Star Wars), Unintentional Politics & Worldbuilding, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:41:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29894403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltysarah/pseuds/saltysarah
Summary: The immediate aftermath. Things get worse before they get better.
Relationships: Cerasi/Obi-Wan Kenobi/Nield (pre-relationship), Jango Fett/Myles the Mandalorian, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Jango Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Khal (OC)
Series: For I Still Live [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2193600
Comments: 15
Kudos: 182





	2 - Let the Storm Wash the Plates

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [For A Child](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27827947) by [Bittodeath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bittodeath/pseuds/Bittodeath). 
  * Inspired by [For A Child](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27827947) by [Bittodeath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bittodeath/pseuds/Bittodeath). 
  * Inspired by [Through the Narrow Gate](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25911346) by [fadinglight123](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadinglight123/pseuds/fadinglight123). 



> Guys. Guys, this was meant to be an epilogue that spiralled into a larger headache than the original fic help. Please note the tags and be warned that from about mid-point to the end, Obi’s mental health kind of careens off a cliff. This is an Eventual Happy Ending, stress on the _eventual_. 
> 
> The series title is from Quintus Ennius: _Let no one weep for me, or celebrate my funeral with mourning; for I still live, as I pass to and from through the mouths of men._ The title is taken from Edwin Morgan’s poem ‘Strawberries’.

Obi-Wan wanted to run straight to Cerasi and Nield at the sight of them, but his arms were full with Havla and Cy’Baoth. Their shaking arms were full, too, each with a Babby on their backs and a stretcher between them. He immediately reached out with the Force, bearing the weight of the 2 stretchers so they could be easily lowered to the ground.

Cerasi craned her neck to find him. When their eyes met, she smiled.

He carefully rose to his feet, making sure the Babbies had a hold on his trousers as he made his way to them, lightening as many loads as he could. There were 67 surviving Young. A third of them were Babbies and over 10 of them were in stretchers. Of the remaining 42 able-bodied Young, himself included, only 2 of them were uninjured: Khiyosh and Metzizi, both of them medics.

“Any issues?” he asked, running trembling fingers over both Cerasi and Nield.

Nield shook his head. “Nothing we didn’t think of, thankfully,” he muttered. “Took longer than we expected to get here ‘cause we kept having to stop to take breaks.” He paused, immediately latching onto Jaster, who was the only Mandalorian with a bare face. Nezra and Khal were on their feet beside him and Ronei had returned, with more Mandalorians who were bearing medical supplies.

“Khiyosh,” Ronei called, nodding in greeting. “Which _ad’e_ need the most care?”

Obi-Wan could tell Khiyosh appreciated her getting straight to the point; they didn’t like wasting time either.

“Here,” they said, beckoning to the Mirialan, “I’ll show you.”

They encountered the first problem almost immediately: Havla and Cy’Baoth had no issue with the Mandalorians’ armour but they were clearly in the minority, and the Babbies weren’t the only Young perturbed by the faceless helmets, nearly all of them huddled together near the sewer exit and unwilling to move.

Khiyosh set their hands on their hips and let out an irritated huff. “Yeah, that’s not gonna work,” they muttered. “Can you take your helmets and your gloves off, at the very least?”

Helmets swivelled towards Ronei, who was the first to carefully pull off her helmet, neatening her headscarf as she did so.

“They’re _ad’e,”_ she said crisply, “and Khiyosh is their _baar’ur’alor._ You will listen to them as you would me.”

“I could guess,” Nezra said cheerfully, nodding at Khiyosh. “Tell us how we can help.”

She was also the first to obey, revealing petite Sullustan features. Obi-Wan had already seen Khal and their wash of metal-coloured hair, but no other faces were alike. There was a high-domed head of grey-skinned Utapaun, a bright green Twi’lek (and how did they fit their lekku in their helmet??), a Mon Calamari that made him miss Bant more than ever, and those were only the non-human species he recognised.

Havla and Cy’Baoth’s eyes grew wider and wider with each reveal. Some were humanoid in a variety of colours, one had a triangular head and enormous, sideways-blinking eyes, and yet another had 3 eyes and antennae.

More Mandalorians were creeping out from where they’d disappeared into their dropships during his conversation with Jaster, their presences practically crooning out their concern and curiosity in the Force. Cerasi was staring over his shoulder, wary, but Obi-Wan knew Nield would be the one to lash out with aggression if he was startled.

“There are a lot of Mandalorians, but they’re here to help,” he murmured, stroking their arms in an attempt to calm them down.

Someone stepped up beside them, maintaining a careful distance. Obi-Wan recognised the sheet of metallic hair first and hid a smile when he noticed Cerasi’s eyes following the sway of Khal’s hair, entranced.

“Only a handful of _Haat Mando’ade_ ships were immediately in the atmosphere, but when _‘Alor_ put the call out-.” Khal shook their head, sending their hair rippling in Melida/Daan’s sunlight. Even Nield couldn’t help tracking the motion with his eyes. “Nearly all the _Haat Mando’ade_ are here, save for those who have responsibilities on _Manda’yaim,_ but there are definitely more New Mandalorians than expected, and even a goor number of _Kyr’tsad.”_

“That’s the one Jango was calling bad names.”

Khal’s mouth twitched. “That doesn’t surprise me. _Alor’ad_ has bad memories where _Kyr’tsad_ are involved.”

Cerasi’s eyes darted around them, watching the armoured Mandalorians moving among their most sensitive Young with careful eyes. “We’ve had enough of those.”

Khal’s nostrils flared and Obi-Wan could feel them battling to keep from being overwhelmed by their emotions. Actually, now that he was thinking about it, it was an emotion shared by a lot of Mandalorians around them, even the placid-faced medics.

“You’re upset,” he said.

Khal’s lashes fluttered. Even their _eyelashes_ gleamed metallic. “You have no reason to believe me or any other _Mando’ad_ here. We have no proof, we can only offer our actions. _Mando’ad_ are divided about many things - too many, in these times, but that we have put them aside to come here means that part of the _Resol’nare_ still survives.”

Cerasi shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“Every _Mando’ad_ here,” Khal said, “will do everything they can, down to their last breath, to keep any of you _ad’e_ from having bad memories ever again.”

Cerasi’s eyes went wide and Nield’s grip suddenly went tight. “I don’t understand,” she repeated, breathier than the last.

 _“Aliit,”_ Khal explained, “family, clan. It is everything to _Mando’ad._ To raise a hand against _aliit,_ let alone _ad’e_ \- only _demagolkase_ would dare.”

“Monsters,” Obi-Wan translated for Cerasi and Nield.

Nield’s grip turned bruising as tears filled Cerasi’s eyes. “They _were_ family, once.”

 _“Dar’buir’e,”_ Khal said grimly. “They would be deserving of all the bad names _Alor’ad_ could think of. I have been remiss in not asking earlier, but are any of you injured? While all of Ronei’s limited bacta tanks are spoken for, we can certainly provide in other ways.”

Obi-Wan glanced over at where the Mandalorian medics were picking up the limp, broken bodies of the Young and swallowed back tears. Ronei was standing beside a sharp-eyed Khiyosh, explaining everything that she was doing and showing Khiyosh their resources. Obi-Wan knew their medic well enough to see the relief in the set of their shoulders, but they wouldn’t let their guard down, not yet, if ever.

He knew, because he was much the same.

In that moment Obi-Wan missed Bant so badly it _hurt._ She’d wanted to be a Healer. She would have taught Khiyosh everything she knew, and then the 2 of them would sit on him to get a proper eval on him. Bant had likely already been chosen as a Padawan. She _had_ to be. 

“We’re not injured, not really,” Nield muttered, distracting him from his moping.

Khal nodded their understanding even as they spoke. “I would still request that you all undergo a standard medical evaluation so we can assess your dietary requirements. All of you are appear underweight and have been fighting for-.”

“Months,” Obi-Wan shrugged.

“Years,” Cerasi and Nield said together. 

Khal’s gauntlet joints creaked dangerously when they clenched their fists, startling all of them. The tornado of fury that whipped through the Mandalorian left Obi-Wan weak-kneed and clutching at the other 2.

 _“Ni ceta,”_ Khal said in their soft, soothing voice, so at odds with the inferno of anger within them. “I apologise, I did not mean to startle you. I will try to have better control of my reactions.”

“I don’t understand,” Cerasi said yet again.

Khal closed their eyes. “…I am sorry that you don’t. There will be many _Mando’ad_ who will be beating themselves up tonight, that there were so many _ad’e_ caught up in a war against _demagolkase_ so close to _Manda’yaim._ We didn’t know Melida/Daan was inhabited, let alone at war with it’s own _ad’e_. We would have been here much sooner if we did.”

“It’s not your fight,” Nield croaked out.

Khal smiled faintly. “You will find that _Mando’ad_ need little excuse for a fight, particularly when the safety of _ad’e_ is in question.”

Nield shook his head. “It’s- I dunno, none of the Elders thought that way. It was kinda expected that we’d grow up and just keep on fighting, Melida against Daan, Daan againstt Melida. Wanting it all to stop was just another reason to continue the war.”

Khal shook their head. “Only _hut’tuun shabuir’e_ would involve _ad’e.”_

“You said there were different people here,” Cerasi said, fire in her eyes, “different types of Mandalorians. It sounds like we’re walking straight out of one war and into another!”

She hadn’t bothered to keep her voice down. The Young - those who were still conscious - had gone watchful and still, eyes ticking and hands at the ready. As for the Mandalorians - they went watchful and still, too, standing at attention without ever reaching for a weapon.

They didn’t need to, Obi-Wan realised with a wave of despair. The Young were vulnerable and barely-armed, half of their number already installed in Ronei’s medical centre. Adirect shot to the throat with a blaster hadn’t even made Jaster or Jango _flinch._

“Are you gonna tell me your kids _don’t_ grow up fighting the same karking war?”

Khal bowed their head. “We protect our _ad’e_ and our _Resol’nare_ as much as we can. I will not lie to you and say that _ad’e_ do not get caught up in our conflicts, because accidents happen, but it is never intentional. _Haat Mando’ade_ train all in basic self-defence, and it is the _ad’s_ choice if they want to pursue the life of a warrior. That is not the only recourse open to them, of course. I can only speak for myself-.”

“I can say my own karking piece,” a nearby Mandalorian in clean silver armour snapped, stepping forward.

“As can I,” another Mandalorian growled, this one in battered, well-used armour streaked with blue and grey.

Khal appeared unruffled at the interruption. “New Mandalorian, _Haat Mando’ade,_ and _Kyr’tsad,”_ they said, still with that neutral voice. It was a voice even a Jedi could envy. _“Buy’ce_ off, please, you will alarm the _ad’e.”_

Grumbling, the 2 new Mandalorians did as ordered. The one in silver armour was a bright blue humanoid male, while the one in battered armour was a Togruta female. Her helmet had to have an extra compartment to fit her montrals, although Obi-Wan couldn’t tell how since her helmet didn’t look any larger than any others.

Khal turned back to Cerasi and Nield, a mild expression on their face.

“You might want to be seated for this conversation,” they suggested, guiding them to the ground before, Obi-Wan suspected, either of them realised what they were doing. “It is a long and fraught discussion, which will _not_ in any way, shape, or form turn violent.” Khal pointedly paused, waiting for both Mandalorians to stiffly nod their agreement before continuing. “And neither will the participation of the _ad’e_ be taken as a bid for adoption.” This time, the nods were more reluctant.

 _Adoption?_ Nield mouthed at him, looking outraged.

“The _ad’e_ owe us nothing,” Khal said firmly. “You are satisfying their curiosity, nothing more.”

The Togruta bared her small, sharp teeth at Khal. “I forgot what a long-winded, self-righteous windbag you were, Khal.”

“I had to do something to pass the time,” Khal replied breezily.

“Are you not joining us?” the blue-coloured New Mandalorian asked him when he remained standing, looking back over his shoulder towards the sewer exit.

“I was actually thinking I’d go to the vault,” Obi-Wan admitted.

Nield frowned. “Now?”

He swallowed. “I don’t know what state they’ll be in, but we can at least bring them out now.”

Khal looked alarmed. “There are more of you? How badly injured are they?”

“No, it’s not-.” Obi-Wan exhaled heavily. “The vault is where we kept our dead.”

Around them, the silence was deafening.

“We took them back with us each time, as many as we could, so the Elders could never get a definitive headcount on our losses.” [1]

“Your dead,” the blue-coloured New Mandalorian said, looking awful.

“It’s not as if we didn’t try burying them,” Nield snapped.

The New Mandalorian raised their hands, palm-up. _“Ni ceta, ad,_ I meant no offence.”

Cerasi shook her head, tears filling her eyes as she leant into Nield. “There were too many to keep up with, and the ground only grew harder, and we couldn’t spare the energy- I know it sounds like excuses-.”

“No, no, _ad,_ not at all,” the _Kyr’tsad_ was cooing at Cerasi, her montrals twitching fitfully.

“Couldn’t burn ‘em either,” Nield continued flatly, wrapping an arm around Cerasi. “Smoke would’ve been a dead giveaway, but they deserved-something.”

“Of course not, _ad,”_ the Togruta said mournfully.

“I’ll…just be going, then,” Obi-Wan mumbled, scuffing a foot at the blanket of sorrow that had settled over their small group.

 _“Ad’ika,_ I do not doubt your abilities, but I think it would give us all peace of mind, your _vod’e_ included, if you did not go alone,” Khal said. Obi-Wan really did want to learn how they made every word that left their mouth sound so reasonable.

“I’m just going to mark the spot above ground,” he protested.

“I could accompany you,” Khal offered.

Obi-Wan felt unreasonably smug to be able to say, “I think you have a discussion you’re not getting out of.”

“The _ad’s_ safety takes precedence, though,” the New Mandalorian said hesitantly.

“Ronei can arrange an escort,” Khal said firmly.

“What can I do?”

The Mirialan cast an unimpressed look at their group. “I’m going to want to do evals on you 2,” she told Cerasi and Nield, “and you, _ad’ika.”_

Khal smiled. “I already warned them.”

“I can tell you,” Khiyosh volunteered. “Got all their info memorised. They’d forget their heads some days if I didn’t tell ‘em.”

Obi-Wan immediately protested, Cerasi and Nield just a beat behind, but all the Mandalorians laughed. They weren’t laughing _at_ them, either, and even Khal’s carefully-neutral expression had cheered up.

“You’re _b_ _aar’ur’alor_ if there ever was one,” Ronei praised. “It’s a gift and a boon, to have to chase down _di’kut alor_ everywhere.”

“If you mean hard-headed idiots, you got that right,” Khiyosh muttered. “Sometimes I thought you could knock down Elder strongholds with those skulls of yours, they were that hard.”

The Mandalorians laughed even harder.

“We weren’t that bad,” Obi-Wan tried.

“You were the worst,” Khiyosh told him flatly.

He just pouted as even Cerasi and Nield laughed at that. Khiyosh met his eyes, one corner of their mouth twitching. He’d take his knocks any day if it could get those 2 smiling, and Khiyosh knew it.

Eventually Khal took pity on him and told Ronei that he needed an escort. The Mirialan’s eyes immediately narrowed on him, as did Khiyosh’s.

“Are there more _ad’e_ out there? You should have led with that immediately!”

“No, I want to go to the vault.”

Khiyosh looked away, glassy-eyed.

“The vault?” Ronei asked, frowning.

“He wants to mark where they left their dead for burial,” Khal said quietly. _“Ad’ika,_ we would help you move their bodies, wherever you wished.”

Obi-Wan bit his lip, turning to Cerasi and Nield. “I don’t know how funeral rites are conducted on Melida/Daan. Like Nield said, we buried the first few, but we couldn’t manage more.”

“Burial,” Cerasi choked out. “We return to the dust we came.”

It sounded like she was quoting something, from the way both Nield and Khiyosh gave brusque nods.

“Where should they be moved?” Khal asked softly.

Cerasi and Nield glanced at each other.

“They’ve been moved too much already,” she whispered.

Khal simply nodded. “Once the location has been marked, we can start digging plots.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Cerasi bit out, wrapping her arms around herself as Nield wrapped himself around her. “It’s not- I still don’t understand why you’re here. There’s nothing for you on Melida/Daan. Nothing but death.”

 _“Ad,”_ Khal said, “we are here because we chose to be.”

* * *

In the end, it was decided that Jango would accompany him to the vault, never mind that he was as good as the Mandalorians’ _prince._ When Obi-Wan brought this up to Jaster, the man simply smiled and said, “Well then, that just means you’ll have to take care of each other, won’t you?”

Ridiculous. Absolutely, utterly ridiculous.

“I don’t like this,” he told Jango once they were safely in the sewers. He’d taken another ammunition pack from Rod, the girl breathing easier than she had in weeks with the use of a ventilator, and retrieved his blades from Rizzo.

“We will keep your _vod’e_ safe, _ori’haat,”_ Jango replied with surprising patience.

“Oh, it’s not the Mandalorians I’m worried about, not even the True Mandalorian and the _Kyr’tsad_ with Cerasi and Nield,” he said.

“Maybe you should be,” Jango grumbled, and Obi-Wan recalled Khal saying the older boy had bad memories of the _Kyr’tsad._

“No, you don’t understand,” he huffed. “I can _feel_ your camp, I can tell that everyone in there’s just really worried about the Young. I don’t understand why, but I do get that they won’t let any harm come to them.”

“If you’re not worried about the camp,” Jango realised, “then what are you worried about. Us?”

“I can’t say who for certain,” Obi-Wan muttered. “The Force isn’t some kind of magic 8 ball, you know, you can’t exactly shake an answer out of it. But if any Elder are still out there, we’ve just given them one of the leaders of the Young and the Mandalorian prince pretty on a platter.”

“I think your Elders have _quite_ a bit more to worry about than us,” Jango said smugly.

A red cape fluttered in the corner of his eye, as much target as it was a pennant.

“How far away is Korda VI from Melida/Daan?”

Jango stopped dead. “We’re right in the middle,” he realised. His helmet swivelled to stare at him, intent. “Get out of here, _ad’ika._ I’ll comm in for back-up-.”

“No,” Obi-Wan said slowly, feeling the Force swirl around them, guiding their steps forward. “You’ve got to trap them back, remember?”

Jango hissed. _“Ad’ika,_ this doesn’t involve you!” He felt the older boy’s worry surge.

“You brought it to us,” he replied with utter certainty, “and now you’ve set the your own trap, even if you didn’t mean to. It’s possible they’ll want to capture you instead, you know. Whoever your enemies are, they know how important children are to you. Everyone knows Jaster’ll do just about anything to get you back.”

“Like I’d let him!” Jango barked out, but there was fear leaking out of him, too.

Obi-Wan caught Jango’s gauntlet and held on. “That said, they are more likely to try and capture you alive to get to Jaster, and then kill the 2 of you at one go.”

“Why do you know this?” Jango demanded.

Obi-Wan glanced sideways. “We fell for that, once, with the Elders.”

Revulsion caught Jango’s breath, sending his shoulders shuddering. Obi-Wan gently tugged his gauntlet, urging him along.

“We know their game this time,” he said, “and we’re in the sewers. This is Young territory now.”

“You- don’t have to do this,” Jango tried again, his breathing harsh and erratic behind his helmet. “This isn’t your fight. _Ad’ika,_ you’ve fought too much already.”

“You helped us end our war,” he replied. “I’m going to help you end yours.”

Jango had nothing to say to that. Good; he was trying to ignore the shit he was going to get from Cerasi and Nield for this, just after Khiyosh’s words, even.

Obi-Wan led them through the sewers, eeling through tunnels partly collapsed from the Mandalorians’ bombardment. He had to use the Force to widen some of the gaps for Jango to fit. Although the older boy consistently, and quite amusingly, twitched each time, he never said a word of protest, and by the 5th tunnel even the niggling uneasiness had melted into nothing.

“That Force _osik_ of yours can be good for something, huh,” Jango muttered, ducking to keep his helmet from scraping the top of their 6th tunnel.

“It has its perks,” he teased. “Bear in mind that I was only a year or so into my actual Padawanship when I arrived here. A lot of the things I can do are simple tricks we learn in the creche.”

Jango was watching him keenly. “Even the visions?”

Obi-Wan wrinkled his nose. He didn’t owe the Jedi anything, wouldn’t even be a footnote in their ranks, if Master Jinn had any say about it, but he still felt uneasy about spilling their secrets to an age-old enemy of theirs. Well. Jango hadn’t been asking for details, not really. Maybe he could hint and deflect. And if Jango continued to press, with greater insistence - well, that was telling all on its own, wasn’t it?

A voice that sounded very much like Bant and Garen and Cerasi and even Nield, on a good day, said that he really shouldn’t be playing fast and loose with his life, but it was _his_ life, thank you very much. If Mandalorians could take calculated risks, so could he. Besides, Obi-Wan was an _excellent_ gambler, thanks to Quin, Dex, and Hondo.

“What do you know about the Force?” he began.

He couldn’t see Jango’s face but he rather thought the older boy was wrinkling his nose inside his helmet. “An _osik_ excuse _jetiise_ use to avoid explaining anything.”

Obi-Wan couldn’t help the giggles that left his mouth. He was genuinely amused, and the sound helped put Jango at ease, too.

“If I had a credit for every time I heard someone tell me that, I’d be rich,” he mused. “The Force isn’t magic, it’s a- well, it’s a force, for lack of a better word, that is everywhere and everywhen at once. There is no time nor space nor distance in the Force. I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.”

Jango was quietly grumbling in his helmet. “Still sounds like _osik._ But that last bit - it sounds…”

“Yeah,” he agreed, immediately knowing what Jango meant. “There are some things we can all do: move things around, little mind tricks, immediate warnings and stuff-.”

“And stuff,” Jango snickered.

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes at the reminder that Jango actually wasn’t much older than him. “Do you want me to continue or not?”

Jango was still snickering but he nodded. Obi-Wan sniffed.

“Simple things,” he said firmly, “and we are all trained to listen to the Force, but it also comes to us all differently. Some people see possible paths, others are skilled in Force healing, and others feel memories left behind by others.”

“And you see visions,” Jango said.

“I see warnings,” he corrected. “They come as visions, yeah, but they’re also just possibilities. One of my masters would say not to trust too much in them since the future is always in motion.”

“Masters,” Jango sneered, an oily, dark hatred coiling around him.

Obi-Wan broke into a coughing fit, needing to lean against the tunnel wall to catch his breath. Almost immediately that stain in the Force began to disappear, replaced by a veritable wall of concern.

 _“Osik,”_ Jango swore, “I shouldn’t have taken you at your word; I should just cart you back to Ronei and let you take your licks-.”

Obi-Wan wordlessly waved Jango’s words away, still coughing. Thankfully, Khiyosh had refilled his canteen and he could wash the lingering oiliness down.

“You really don’t like the title ‘master’, do you?” he breathed.

This time, at least, he was prepared for the resurgence of hatred, tempered as it was by Jango’s worry. “Do you even know what you sound like?” he demanded. “You think you’re all high and might, but then you shackle yourselves with titles like _slaves.”_

Obi-Wan sighed, taking another sip before returning his canteen into its pouch. “You have a point,” he agreed. If Master Jinn had noticed how hard it was for the word to pass his lips after Bandomeer - well, he’d never said anything, even if Master Tahl certainly had. “And- well, I’m not a Jedi anymore, am I?”

Jango’s helmet turned his way. “It’s really that easy?”

Obi-Wan closed his eyes. “The Jedi Order isn’t slavery, Jango,” he whispered. “They won’t stop you from leaving unless you’re underage, and even then it’s only to make sure that you have a safe place to return to. The Jedi won’t force anyone who does not want to to stay.”

Even behind his helmet, Jango’s eyes felt too keen. “What about those who want to stay but are made to leave?”

He was certain whatever was on his lips wasn’t actually a smile. “No matter where we are in the galaxy, we are one with the Force and the Force is with us.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“That’s all I have to say. We should keep moving.”

Obi-Wan was very good at pretending the silence surrounding them wasn’t cloying. Before Nield had come around, the older boy had thrown far worse tantrums than this. He’d born the brunt of so many tempers before, Jango’s barely even scratched the surface.

“I’m sorry,” the older boy eventually mumbled, his helmet pointed to the ground. “I really- did want to know.”

“It’s alright,” he said. “You can’t help how you feel.”

_But you can control it._

Obi-Wan resolutely pushed that unhelpful thought out of the way.

If anything, Jango didn’t seem to know how to react to his words. “If it helps, there is a history to it,” Obi-Wan explained tiredly, “a- a recognition of the effort and work it takes to reach a Mastery in the Order. It’s a bit telling, though, that the Jedi don’t go into the Outer Rim much, huh?”

“Are you…poking fun at them?” Jango asked uncertainly.

“I don’t think it’s poking fun if it’s the truth,” he mused, his feet unerringly continuing on. “There’s nothing wrong with recognition, but it’s a little bit funny, don’t you think, that the people who most need Jedi almost never see them, but it’s almost like they’re calling out for the Jedi, only…not really at all.”

Obi-Wan could feel Jango listening intently, but the older boy didn’t seem to know how to reply.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I was just…thinking aloud, I guess. Even I’m not really sure what to make of it, but - and I think I told Ces and NIeld this, that change doesn’t have to be good or bad, a lot of the time it just _is,_ and that’s the beauty of choice, you know? Every choice ever made is rooted in desire. And the Order is really, _really_ bad about desire - there’s precedence, hence the hardline about attachment.”

 _“Ad’ika,_ ” Jango eventually said, “I think lost the plot after ‘don’t worry’.”

Obi-Wan sighed. “Don’t mind me, I’m just blurting out whatever comes to mind. Most of it probably doesn’t even make sense.”

“Philosophy in the sewers?” Jango teased, but he still felt uncertain.

“Change, I think,” he said. “It’s the only constant.” Except - Master Yoda was _800 years old._ He and Quin had been assigned a punishment, he couldn’t even remember what they’d done to deserve it, but they had to unearth all the core tenets of the Jedi then and compare them to the present. The only thing Quin had gained from that punishment was a healthy fear of Master Nu, but Obi-Wan never forgot just how many of those tenets were either unchanged, or their complete opposite.

Master Yoda had looked every Jedi who’d entered the Order with the same eyes. What did they look like to him? Luminous beings were they, but did they mean they flickered and died like flame, too?

On Melida/Daan, it had certainly seemed that easy.

Ugh, his thoughts. On an exhale, he released the build-up of emotion into the Force and abruptly felt exhausted.

“I don’t even know how we got here anymore,” he admitted plaintively.

Jango snorted. “By you being a little too willing to humour me and then a little too philosophical. You and your Force _osik, ad’ika._ You make my head hurt.” He paused, raising his head on a swivel. “Do you smell that?” He raised his other hand, likely to activate some sort of filter in his helmet.

Obi-Wan nodded. “It’s- not fine, but it isn’t dangerous. It’s just decomposition.”

_“Decomp-!”_

Obi-Wan glanced over, gesturing for him to follow. “What else did you expect? It’s not like we could spare the supplies to preserve the bodies, even if we had them. The most we could do was make sure that the vault was as close to the Elders’ burial pits as we could manage so that they’d be undisturbed and the smell wouldn’t give us away.”

Jango’s gauntlets creaked in their fists before he made a concentrated effort to gentle his grip.

“I wish we’d gotten here sooner.”

Obi-Wan shrugged. “There’s no use in quibbling over the past. All we can do is live in the present and keep moving forward.”

“More _jetii osik?”_ Jango asked dryly.

“It’s something I learnt on Melida/Daan, actually,” he replied. “Sure, I don’t want to forget where we went wrong so we can figure out how we can do better later on, but if we were always moping over our mistakes, we’d all be long dead.@

Jango reached for him, slow enough that he could see him coming, and gripped his shoulder. 

“We’re going to want to do better for all of you,” he said, “I’m not alone in thinking that.”

“You’re all weird,” Obi-Wan muttered, ducking his head. “C’mon, the smell doesn’t get any better.”

“Do you-?”

“I’m fine,” he said, waving away the older boy’s concerns, “I’m used to it.”

He drew in a deep, shuddering breath, disregarding the smell that threatened to choke his lungs. He could be grateful that it was him here on Melida/Daan and not Quinlan; he couldn’t imagine his friend would fare well here at all with his psychometry. As it was, sometimes the miasma of pain and suffering was so thick that it would stop even him in its tracks.

Exhaling, he released his emotions into the Force and led Jango fully into the vault.

It was the largest cavern they’d found this close to the Elders’ burial site, dry and stale. The only dignity they’d been able to grant their dead was to line them up neat as a pin, a sheet to cover their faces. They were lucky enough to not have any bugs but nothing could stop the passage of time, and with that, decay and decomposition.

Jango’s breathing was harsh and rapid behind him.

“Are you going into shock?”

“No,” Jango snapped back, and then hissed. “No, I’m sorry, I just-.” He shook his head, his shoulders hunched up tight. “How- how many bodies are there?”

“At last count?” he asked. “77, equal parts Babbies and Young.” Babbies were kept out of danger as much as possible, but they also died so much easier.

“Kriff,” Jango rasped, rubbing at the sides of his helmet. “This is- so, so much worse than we could have ever imagined.”

Obi-Wan couldn’t really see how. “Really? You’re from a warrior culture, though.”

 _“Ad’e_ are sacred to _mando’ad.”_

“Yeah,” he sighed, “I know.”

“You’ve seen worse, though.” Jango sounded as if he didn’t really want to know.

“I mean, at least they all died free?” he asked, lifting one shoulder. “We tried to give them as much dignity in death as we could spare. It’s a lot better than slave death pits.”

Jango started swearing again.

“You’re not that much older than me,” Obi-Wan said, frowning his disapproval. “You really shouldn’t know this many swearwords.”

“You really gonna get on my case about my language?” Jango demanded incredulously.

Obi-Wan lifted the same shoulder. “What else am I supposed to do? Come on, we should make our way to the surface to mark this place for the others. Is there a way you can let them know where we are?”

Jango nodded. “I have a couple of trackers on me, but I can comm them-.”

He only had a moment’s warning before he shoved Jango and himself to the side, resorting to the Force when his own weight barely shifted the older boy. Jango caught on quick enough to pick him up and twist, shielding him with his armour and shoulders. It was only thanks to Jango’s quick thinking and protective behaviour that kept him alive, and more importantly, _conscious,_ so he could hold up the rocks that were threatening to crush them.

“Jango? Jango!” He coughed, creating a tiny little Force bubble of air around his mouth and nose to filter the dusty air around him so he could keep breathing. Obi-Wan had had a lot of practice with using the Force willy-nilly while on Melida/Daan, but this sort of fine control was something he didn’t have the stamina for.

“Jango, you need to wake up,” he panted, shaking the older boy. He couldn’t poke his consciousness awake like he would anyone else thanks to his armour; if he poked too hard he might poke a hole straight through Jango’s mind. “Your trackers - you have to turn them off. If our attackers manage to trace them, too-.”

The older boy groaned, loud and long and pained, but Obi-Wan would take any sign of consciousness. His kidney felt bruised where he’d landed on the stock of his rifle, but his knives were still in place. Range weapons had been and would always be the problem; what he wouldn’t give to have his lightsaber back, even if he only had Shii-Cho and the barebones of Soresu and Ataru down.

“Your trackers, Jango,” he repeated, patting the helmet’s cheek. “Can you turn them off?”

Jango grunted, pushing up on his hands and knees. “They’re- sub-dermal implants.”

Obi-Wan hesitated before making the offer. He’d never done anything like this before but if he had to keep holding up the rocks for much longer, he’d collapse from Force exhaustion, not just plain old exhaustion.

 _“Ad’ika?”_ Jango asked. “What is it?”

“If- I can touch your skin, and you tell me where the trackers are, I might be able to disable them,” he said. “You should get Ronei to remove them as soon as possible, though.”

Jango snorted, tentatively sitting back. “If we get outta here alive, that’ll be the second thing on my list.”

Obi-Wan cocked his head. “What’s the first?”

Somehow, he just knew Jango was smiling at him even as he pulled off his gauntlet. At that, the quiet joy Obi-Wan could inexplicably feel from him only strengthened, the weirdo. _“Gai bal manda, ad’ika._ If I’m reading this correctly,” he said, gesturing overhead, “you saved my life.”

“You saved mine,” Obi-Wan retorted, although he had a feeling Jango wouldn’t see it that way.

“Without your warning we would both be dead. Come on, we can continue to argue about this later. I have an one tracker in my arm and another in my thigh.”

Obi-Wan gripped Jango’s hand, sending the Force coursing through the older boy’s body. “We _are_ going to continue this argument later,” he mumbled.

“Oh, I’m counting on it,” Jango said nonsensically.

He found the tracker in his arm easily enough, and it was a simple application of the Force to snap it. Jango made a noise.

“Ugh, I felt that.”

“I’m sorry for the discomf-.”

“I’d take that over being dead any day of the week, _ad’ika,”_ Jango interrupted. “Go on - and hurry. My helmet is picking up heat signals, incoming.”

His pulse began to race but Obi-Wan resolutely shoved that to the back of his mind, following the Force and Jango’s blood flow to his second tracker. It was harder to find than the first, nestled between many layers of muscle and far smaller than the first. The one in Jango’s arm was almost expected to be discovered, he realised; this was the back-up.

“They’re going to think you’re dead,” he warned.

 _“Jate,”_ Jango said firmly. “I can always apologise to _Buir_ later if I’m still alive.”

He snapped it. Just in time, too; the incoming were close enough for him to hear the hastily-stifled exclamation they gave. Whoever was chasing them had access to Jango’s secondary implant. That was their traitor right there.

“We need to get out of here,” Jango whispered.

“I can try to loosen the rocks over here and cause another cave-in where they’re at,” he whispered back. “Not sure how much use I’ll be after.”

Jango nodded. “I have you.”

He actually trusted the older boy when he said that; how novel.

“They’re on a timeline, too,” Jango said softly. “There’s no way my _vod’e_ didn’t hear that blast. I don’t think _your vod’e_ would let them come alone, either.”

Obi-Wan sent him a tight smile.

“Ready when you are.”

“That’s my line, _ad’ika,”_ Jango gently teased. “On 3. 1, 2-!”

There wasn’t much need for fine control this time, just a sharp vicious shove in the direction of the exclamation they’d heard earlier. Almost immediately he felt drained, black spots swimming in front of him.

“Lucky you’re so light,” Jango grunted, wrapping an arm around his waist and hoisting him upright. The vertigo nearly made him faint. “You gotta tell me where to go, _ad’ika.”_

“Down,” Obi-Wan managed, his mouth almost too dry, “down.”

“Copy that,” Jango said, a keen sense of purpose overtaking him. Jango would keep him safe. That was the last thought he had before he fell completely unconscious.

* * *

He woke up on a dropship medbed, his adrenaline surging. He pushed upright, only to be held down. The only reason why he didn’t draw a knife was because it was Cerasi.

“What’s going on?” he demanded.

“Some Mandalorians tried to ambush Jango,” Nield said sharply. “You were just extra.”

“The Young?” he pressed.

Cerasi pushed a cup into his hand. _“Drink,”_ she ordered.

His throat was parched and the water was a relief. “The Young?” he pressed the moment he could. “Jango?”

Nield’s face was pinched. “We saw the explosions go off. All the Young are in their dropships, being guarded. The Mandalorians were furious, and when they lost contact with Jango-.”

“They were really scary,” Cerasi whispered, pressing close.

“Scary in the, I’m-gonna-kill-everything-in-my-way way, or how-dare-you-touch-my-Babby way?”

Cerasi thought it over carefully before replying. “Both, but more of the second one, I think.”

Nield nodded reluctantly. “Yeah, the medics were all really careful not to let us see their reactions, but we could tell.”

“I’m surprised you aren’t out there with them,” he probed.

“Their leader - Jas- Jaster?” Nield said uncertainly, only continuing when Obi-Wan nodded. “Yeah, he came to us and apologised.” He could tell the older boy didn’t understand the Mandalorians any better than he did and had to smile. “He said they’d come to help us, not bring their own quarrels to Melida/Daan.”

“I think he means it,” Obi-Wan offered. “I know they’re a little weird - I still don’t really understand why they’re doing so much, they make a big fuss about children and family and stuff.”

“It’s weird,” Cerasi said, wrinkling her nose adorably.

Nield sent them a tight smile. “So he said to let them handle it. They’d get you back or die trying.”

“Jango did bring me back,” he replied. “I wasn’t worried; I trusted that he would.”

“S’weird,” Nield muttered, scuffing his foot.

“Trusting someone else, even someone young,” Cerasi agreed. “Yeah, it’s weird. I’m not sure how I feel about it.”

Obi-Wan’s mouth twitched and he tipped forward to press his forehead to Cerasi’s, his hand reaching out to tangle in Nield’s collar. “Don’t be jealous, I still trust you both best.”

“That wasn’t what I meant,” the older boy sputtered, but Cerasi was laughing, needling their foreheads together.

“Sounds like they’re wrapping things up outside,” Obi-Wan murmured. Nield tugged his fingers free only to wrap his own around them.

“Jaster was really angry,” he said. “Nearly all the Mandalorians were. Ronei promised it wouldn’t take long and that them who was attacking would get what they deserved, going after you and Jango.”

Cerasi sighed, her breath wafting across his cheek. “I think they wanted to do that fake-out the Elders tried with us, you know the one?”

“They did succeed the first time,” Obi-Wan reminded them grimly. So they had gone that route; and just after he and Jango had spoken about it.

“We made them regret it the second,” Nield growled.

“You and Jango got free here, too - well, not you and Jango, you know what I mean,” Cerasi huffed. “It’s cracked their defences wide open.”

“Which means they’re gonna pay,” Nield said with sweet satisfaction.

The Force suddenly _screamed._

Obi-Wan flung himself past Cerasi and Nield with no breath for an explanation, tearing down the gangplank. There were Mandalorians everywhere - on the ground, in their ships, even in the sky through the use of their jetpacks, and it was almost impossible to tell who was who.

 _“Ad’ika,_ what are you doing here?” He recognised Khal’s armour before his distorted voice, the Stewjoni’s indignant protectiveness pulsing out at him.

“There’s a lightsaber out here,” he rasped, scanning the skyline. “Where’s Jaster?”

“What?” Khal demanded, making a grab for him, but Obi-Wan could dodge that in his sleep. He ducked past them and followed the pull of the Force, ignoring Khal’s screaming. He’d apologise to them later, and Cerasi and Nield, if they were all still alive at the end of this.

He might not be a Jedi any longer, but the Force had been a part of him as far as back as he remembered. Even before he’d met Bant and the others, he’d had the Force. He didn’t serve the Force anymore, not in the way the Jedi were trained to, but that didn’t mean he’d stopped listening; quite the opposite, in fact.

The benefit of his increased and relaxed contact with the Force was its own increased and relaxed contact with him. It had become more than a tool, a guide, a way of life. In both his lower and more joyous moments, he counted it as a friend.

Which was why he didn’t blink twice in following its guidance, his footsteps fleet in the Force with renewed vigour, despite his earlier exhaustion. He spied Jango battling another Mandalorian with the _Haat Mando’ade’s_ crest painted on his armour, and felt Myles’ protective fury rear its head as the young man launched himself at the other Mandalorian, all of them rolling to the ground. They could take care of each other, Obi-Wan decided, and continued to search for Jaster - and the lightsaber.

He had a sneaking suspicion that he’d find them both in the same place; the Force was sneaky like that.

Obi-Wan ducked and rolled, snatching a dropped blaster from the ground and coming up wary. No one was really paying attention to him, and he’d appeared to have lost Khal in the mess. Where in the world was Jaster, though? You’d think someone with a kriffing bright red cape would be easy to find, but it seemed like he’d all but vanished from the battlefield.

Just as he thought the words, a loud cry had him turning, falling into a crouch. A bright red cape was snapping in the wind as its owner fought a Mandalorian in dark grey and blue armour, a light blue half-cape around their throat. Obi-Wan honestly felt a little miffed at how stylish they looked. Villains didn’t deserve to be fashionable.

“I don’t have a quarrel with you, Pre,” Jaster was saying. “Where’s your father?”

“If you have a quarrel with my father, you have a quarrel with me,” the stylish Mandalorian growled back, and Obi-Wan was wrong-footed by how _young_ they sounded. He swallowed on a suddenly dry throat, the blaster in his arms falling from numb hands. Jaster’s eyes had been kind from the start, and even now, the Force swirled around him like he was its chosen champion.

He couldn’t be an Elder. He _couldn’t._

The Force guided Obi-Wan’s hands to another fallen Mandalorian, one with the _Haat Mando’ade_ crest on their pauldrons, who had a pair of short swords strapped to their thighs.

“Forgive me,” he whispered, bowing to the corpse, “I’m only looking to borrow them.” He put his hand over where their eyes would be under their helmet. “We return to the dust we came. May you be at peace in the Force.”

Maybe when he found out what the Mandalorians said, he’d turn it into a proper poem.

The swords he took were strangely light for blades, but, as Cerasi was fond of saying, he wasn’t going to look a gift bantha in the mouth. The Force had led him to them for a reason - a reason that quickly became evident when a sudden humming in his bones had him relaxing, despite the chaos that surrounded him now.

“I don’t think that belongs to you.”

 _“Ad,_ get lost,” a Mandalorian in red and black armour sneered. There was a lightsaber in his hand, but it was unlike any other Obi-Wan had ever seen. Instead of the usual blue or green or even amber or purple, it was _black._ Still, he could feel its kyber crystal, buried in its heart. Funnily enough, it was a vain little thing, strongly bothered by the years since it had last been taken apart by a Force-sensitive and properly cleaned.

“No,” Obi-Wan replied as he rotated his wrists, and then crossed the blades together in the guard stance for Jar’kai. Maybe this Mandalorian wouldn’t know the name of this particular form, but he’d learnt that Jedi bladework was _very_ distinctive. “I don’t think so.”

 _“Jetii,”_ the Mandalorian seethed, and that was all the warning he received before they were practically on top of him.

It was probably only due to a combination of the Force, his ability to keep a level head in utterly karked situations, and the fact that his adrenaline was spiking that had him surviving past the first 10 seconds, considering how he and Jar’kai were not good friends. In fact, they were barely even passing acquaintances. No one had taken the time to correct his forms at the temple because they had, quite simply, been nothing to write anyone about.

He wasn’t so much parrying and blocking as deflecting and using his greater speed and agility to avoid dying, and the less said about his offence the better. This fight was an honest-to-Force joke, considering how Obi-Wan was a _fraction_ of the Mandalorian’s size and entirely unarmoured. It was a pleasant surprise when his newly acquired blades held up against a lightsaber, but given the way the metal glowed when their blades met, he quickly learnt that a prolonged block would _not_ be in his favour, and neither would going corps-à-corps.

“How did you get this lightsaber?” he panted.

“What, your Force _osik_ isn’t giving you the answer?”

Obi-Wan grunted, ducking under the black ‘saber. “That’s really not how it works!” he said and slammed the edge of one blade into the crease between their thigh and calf armour at the same time.

The Mandalorian grunted their surprise, falling to one knee, and Obi-Wan swung his other blade like a particularly unwieldy club and batted the ‘saber out of their hand.

“Ha!” he cheered, prematurely, because the Mandalorian recovered faster than he expected and slugged him across the face. Obi-Wan went sprawling, stunned, blood in his mouth and stars in his eyes. Cesari and Nield were going to kill him for his carelessness, if Khiyosh didn’t get to him first.

“I’m going to take great pleasure in restarting the _Jetii-Mando’ade_ war,” the Mandalorian gloated. Thank the Force they were a talker.

“Sorry to disappoint,” he rasped as he scrabbled onto his hands and knees, “but I’m not a Jedi.”

Obi-Wan could practically _taste_ the Mandalorian’s bewilderment, even through the blood. “I saw you use their _osik.”_

“They kicked me out and left me here to die,” he spat, the first time he let the words pass his lips, the first time he accepted the truth of them to himself. “They won’t give a rat’s arse about me, let alone a little internal dispute on the Outer Rim.”

The Mandalorian hissed, fury threatening to bubble up and over as they snagged him by the collar, hauling him upright like a tooka kit, of all things. “Montross said the _ord’inii_ Mereel would trade for you. You won’t die, not yet.”

Obi-Wan immediately began to squall and squirm. “Only a _di’kut shabuir aruetii dar’mando_ would trying something as sleemo as-!”

Another blow to the head had fresh blood pouring down his nose and flooding his mouth. He might end up with a nose to match both Nield and Jaster.

“Mereel won’t need all of you,” the Mandalorian snarled, “only the relevant bits.”

“No,” Obi-Wan gasped, “no, _no-!”_

A handle flew into his hand like he’d never spent a day without it. His wrist was turning before the blade was even on, his aim unerring despite the blood in his eyes. The Mandalorian howled as Obi-Wan fell back down, clutching their remaining stump of an arm.

_“Duck!”_

Obi-Wan went flat, never mind that it left his pounding head ringing. He sincerely hoped whoever that was took care of that Mandalorian and, more importantly, didn’t expect him to get back up without jelp.

There was a fight going on nearby, judging by the grunts. The way the Force was tensing and roiling told him Jaster was involved, and did absolutely nothing for his aching head.

 _“Ad’ika,_ what in the name of _ka’ra_ are you doing here?” Jango demanded, sounding cross and worried and so very, very welcome right about now.

“I don’t think I can stand,” Obi-Wan said faintly, and, to his surprise, spat out a tooth.

“Your face is a mess, _ad’ika,”_ Myles’ voice told him, frank and a little apologetic. “I thought you left him with Khal?”

“Ronei is going to skin them _and_ me,” Jango muttered, his gauntlets on him gentle.

“Is- is Jaster okay?” Obi-Wan pressed. “I can’t really make out what’s happening.”

“That’s your half-cracked skull and all the blood pouring out that’s talking, _ad’ika,”_ Myles soothed. “Never you mind your little head about _‘Alor,_ he has _Manda_ on his side.”

“That Mandalorian had a lightsaber,” he said, sagging against Jango as the older boy helped him to his feet. The lightsaber’s hilt nearly slipped right out of his hands; he hadn’t realised just how much he’d bled on it. Its complaining worsened, which did _not_ help the pounding in his head.

“They shouldn’t be using a Jedi’s tool to- to be doing those things. It wasn’t right.”

“The _jetiise_ owe you nothing,” Jango hissed, apparently giving up on his feet and hauling him into his arms in a princess carry. Obi-Wan barely managed to keep ahold of the lightsaber, clutching it to his chest. Maybe he would have enjoyed it, maybe he would have felt embarrassed. He was a little too busy dry heaving and puking out bile to really decide.

 _“Hukaat’kama,_ Myles,” Jango said, sounding serious, just as a resounding cheer went up from around them, the sound piercing his brain and making him gag. Thankfully, he didn’t remember anything else.

* * *

This time, when he woke up on a dropship medbed, his move to immediately roll upright was hampered by how his arms were strapped to the bed and blindfolded. 

“Uh,” he managed, fighting down mild panic. “I’m not into this sort of thing?” 

Myles’ hyenax laughter was almost comforting, despite the situation.

 _“Ad’ika,_ you are an utter joy.”

“Obi-Wan, I’m going to _kill_ you.”

He paused, thinking furiously. “Khiyosh is there, right? Can you knock me back unconscious?” That way, at least he wouldn’t have to deal with the growing numbness in his fingertips.

Myles’ laughter started up again, the sound beginning to racket around in his head. He wasn’t alone, either; the small medbay was made smaller by the number of people packed inside it, their emotions surging and bucking for attention he didn’t have to spare.

“I- I,” he panted, “I need to-.”

The binds around him snapped and he was out of the bed, unerringly going for the fresher and slamming it shut behind him, ignoring the startled cries. Obi-Wan dropped to his knees and gagged, desperately wanting to purge the leaden ball in his belly, but only saliva and bile leaked out of his mouth. He raised his shoulders, curling into a tight ball and trying to forget the phantom weight around that still clung to his neck.

Tears and sweat had the blindfold soddenly sticking to his eyelids. Obi-Wan clawed it off, throwing it aside - but the darkness remained. He was scrabbling and he knew it, the Force sliding just out of reach. Every step that he had taken, every choice that he had made, all that had brought him here, sitting in a corner of a fresher in a Mandalorian dropship - the Force used to sing to him. It used to be so clear. Fear was - not a friend, but an old hat, at least.

No.

Fear was all he had now.

* * *

(They had all panicked harder worse when the crying sounds abruptly stopped. Jaster gestured for Jango and Myles to hold the Young back as he broke down the fresher door. The _ad’ika_ was unconscious, the blindfold ripped off, deep gouges in his skin where he’d ripped the binds away with the Force.

Jaster swore, reaching for him.

“Don’t!” The boy, Nield, shouted, fighting against Jango with quite industrious use of his elbows - at least it would’ve been, if his _ad_ hadn’t been wearing full _beskar’gam._ “Don’t touch his neck!”

Khiyosh stopped struggling for a moment to frown, keen-eyed. “Anything beyond the usual?”

“No, but-.”

“What exactly is the usual?” Jango asked flatly. Jaster knelt beside the _ad’ika,_ feeling for a pulse in his slightly less-mangled wrist. Pale and limp, he looked even worse than when Jango had first brought him in, covered in blood.

“He doesn’t like it when anyone touches his neck,” Khiyosh returned in an equally flat tone.

Jango bit out another curse. “Was he injured there before?”

“No,” the girl, Cerasi, rasped, and she’d made use of her height to try and _climb_ Myles, pitched half over his shoulder with only his grip on her wriggly waist to keep ahold of her. “He was always sensitive about his neck, even before he came to Melida/Daan.”

Jaster frowned, taking a careful look at the _ad’ika’s_ neck, past the line of his collar - and immediately began cursing up a storm.

_“Buir?”_

Jango was afraid. Jaster reeled in his rising temper and started to wrap the _ad’ika’s_ wrists in clean bandages.

“Get Ronei here, we need that full eval, _now.”_

“What’s going on?” Cerasi demanded, equally afraid.

“When in all hells were you going to tell me the _ad’ika_ had been _enslaved_ before?”

Silence greeted his announcement, until it was broken by Jango running out of the ship. Thankfully, Nield stayed where he was, seemingly stunned.

_“What?”_

“You didn’t know,” Jaster realised tiredly, carefully lifting the _ad’ika_ in his arms. He barely weighed anything. “I’ve seen the scarring on his neck before - it’s from a slave collar.”

Myles could release Cerasi, the girl having chosen to cling to Nield and Khiyosh instead.

“We would never have agreed to bind him if that were the case,” Jaster explained, gently setting the _ad’ika_ back down on his medbed. “There is a standard procedure to handle former slaves, be they escaped or released. Has he been checked for a slave chip?”

Khiyosh seemed struck mute, but Jaster didn’t really expect an 11-year-old _ad_ to have the answer to that question.

“How- he’s been with the Jedi since he was a baby,” Nield bit out. “He came here _with_ the Jedi. He’s never left-.”

“Then,” Jango interrupted, returning with Ronei, and Jaster allowed himself to be pushed aside, “the only explanation is that sometime between his birth and arrival at Melida/Daan, the _Jetii_ had the _ad’ika_ enslaved.”

“That…doesn’t seem like something they’d do,” Cerasi said slowly.

Myles had subtly sidled over to Jango’s side, their pauldrons clinking lightly against each other. “Thought the _Jetii_ treasured their _ad’e_ more, but the _ad’ika_ is here, as are all of you, all the same.”

“Get out, all of you,” Ronei ordered, “you’re a kriffing nuisance in my medbay. Except Khiyosh and Jango, you 2 can stay.”

Myles squeezed Jango’s hand, then gestured at the _ad’ike_. “Come on, let’s leave the _baar’ur’e_ to work.”

“Why does _he_ get to stay?” Nield growled, stubborn to the last. In any other situation, Jaster might have laughed; he and Jango were entirely too alike.

He brought up the rear, forcing the _ad’ike_ to keep moving or get bowled over by him. “Let’s leave them to work, first,” he said gently. “I’ll explain outside.”)

* * *

The next time he woke, he felt utterly drained. There was an IV taped to the back of his hand and bacta-soaked bandages wrapped around both wrists. Obi-Wan studied their clean edges with a muted bemusement. It was a relief to know his sight had returned.

He made to pluck at one wrist with his free hand.

“Please don’t.”

To his surprise, it was Khal stepping up to check his IV stand and Jango sitting beside him, not Cerasi and Nield.

“Where are-?”

“Ronei spoke to Khiyosh who pulled them out of the dropship by their ears,” Jango supplied.

Obi-Wan blinked. The actions in and of themselves weren’t suspect, but their timing was.

 _“Naak, ad’ika,”_ Khal sighed, ignoring the various stools to sit on his medbed, close enough for him to feel their heat. That was…new. “Your _vod’ike,_ for all their bravery and accomplishments, are both fortunately and unfortunately unequipped to deal with the after-effects of slavery.”

Jango jucked his head, scrubbing the curls at the back of his head.

“Yeah, about that,” he muttered, “we would’ve never let the _ad’ike_ tie you down if we’d known. They meant it as a joke more than anything else, they just didn’t want you to go haring off like you had the last time.”

“You gave us quite a scare, _ad’ika,”_ Khal said, clearly telegraphing his intentions to lay a hand over his shin. It was only then that he realised the other Stewjoni had removed his gauntlets. Did Stewjoni naturally run this warm?

“Both times.”

Obi-Wan glanced up guiltily to see Khal watching him with a disingenuously mild expression.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I mean, I’m not sorry for what I did, but I am sorry I worried you. I didn’t mean to worry anyone, I actually do know what I’m doing, most of the time.”

Khal sighed. “Your _vod’e_ mentioned you would say that.”

They would; they’d had to get used to him going off on his own and pulling off ridiculous things, just because the Force said so. The worst part was that he knew it was a terrible cheap excuse, but he didn’t have anything better to offer.

“I’m going to check your head wound now. You were blindfolded because Tor hit you hard enough to knock your visual receptors loose, and they needed time to heal.”

“Okay,” he said, ducking his head. “Thanks.”

“Do you have any questions for us, _ad’ika?”_

“What happened? I mean, I was there in the vault and I remember the explosion, but then a lot of different things were going on at the same time. Is everyone alright?”

Jango leant forward. “I marked the vault, _ad’ika._ There’s a team working to get them out now.” He paused, and Obi-Wan felt his heart seize. _“Nayc,_ there’snothing’s wrong, I was just thinking how to phrase this. I asked Cerasi and Nield, and they said to ask you, too.” He exhaled. “There were some _Mando’ad_ who died in the attack.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, and then remembered the blades he’d used. “I’d borrowed someone’s swords-.”

Khal huffed. “Gwet Ordo,” they replied. “She’d be proud they were used to help take down Tor.”

“She’s one of them, actually,” Jango nodded. “Those who fell - for some, we’ll freeze their bodies and bring ‘em back to their _aliit_ on _Manda’yaim,_ but some others asked if they could bury here, with the _ad’e_ they tried to save.”

Obi-Wan couldn’t quite figure out how else to phrase it. “Um. All of them were dead before any of you got here?”

Jango snorted. “Some of the _Mando’ad_ are a bit more traditional. They would take the _Resol’nare_ with them, even in death.”

“...and that means?”

 _“Cabur’e,_ even in death,” Khal said quietly. “They would guard your _vod’e_ in death where they failed to in life. Protect them, till they were reborn into a _jate aliit._ Maybe, if they were fortunate enough, they would find themselves _buir’e._ ”

It was almost sweet, if also a little disturbing.

“What did Cerasi and Nield have to say about that?”

“Not much,” Jango shrugged. “I don’t think they really got it, either, but they didn’t seem to mind. Cerasi explained, some about the whole thing with dust: it’s to do with the life cycle, and giving life in death.”

“That’s…practical.”

“Yeah, compared to their plans for the Elders? They just wanna burn ‘em all and space the remains. They believe a part of the person returns to the spirit of the planet, too. So the Elders-.”

Obi-Wan pressed his lips together and did not think about Jedi pyres. Instead, he let the Young he had become surge to the forefront. “Yeah, space the lot of them, please.” He looked between Jango and Khal, considering.

“Melida/Daan has their own rites. What about Mandalorians?”

 _“Nu kyr’adyc, shi taab’echaaj’la._ Our _vod’e_ are never really gone, merely marching far away,” Jango supplied. “We keep them with us, in our daily Remembrances.”

It was a hauntingly familiar sentiment, and one he thought he should meditate upon. It was even more poetic than he expected, but... “Every day?”

Khal smiled faintly. “They are a weight we would not want to forget. Do you think you could keep some soup down?”

“I thought that was what the IV was for.”

The look Khal sent him was nothing short of blistering. “You are beyond what an IV alone can supply. Besides, IVs aren’t the type of liquids you should be subsisting of.”

He frowned. “Meaning there _are_ liquids that I should?”

Khal sighed and handed him a half-full bowl of clear soup. “We’ll get to that.”

Obi-Wan accepted it dubiously. It didn’t look like much, but maybe that was for the best. It was then that he noticed his bandages were uneven, wrapped further down the arm not connected to the IV.

“I thought I’d ripped them up pretty equally,” he said.

Jango and Khal exchanged a look.

“Finish the soup first, if you can,” Khal said. “We’ll…get to that.”

He drank about three-quarters of the bowl in awkward silence. Jango kept twitching, and Khal kept having to reach out to calm him back down again.

“I’m done,” Obi-Wan eventually said, holding out the mostly-empty bowl to Khal, “thank you. Now, what is it?”

 _“Ad’ika,”_ Jango blurted out, “you still had a slave chip in the inside of your wrist, even if the activation codes were long dead.”

Khal set the bowl down and then returned to his side, settling even closer than he had before. “The _ad’ike_ said they didn’t know.”

“It wasn’t relevant.”

Jango’s ire surged, but Khal made a sharp cutting motion, and the older boy subsided with a hiss.

“Unfortunately, _ad’ika,_ it is.”

“Some of this can wait, right?” Jango demanded plaintively. “You don’t- have to dump all this on the _ad’ika_ right now, right?”

“The questions cannot,” Khal replied, gently but firm. “The explanations may.” They refocused their attentions on him. _“Ad’ika,”_ they asked, “may I hold your hand?”

Obi-Wan raised that same hand, wriggling his fingers, more than a little bemused. “Is that really the question you want to ask?”

Jango snorted softly.

“It was the easiest one,” Khal admitted, “to ask and to answer.”

Despite Khal’s calm face, his presence in the Force was churning and twisting uneasily. Jango was even easier to read, leaning forward as he was with his elbows on his thighs.

“Before that,” Obi-Wan asked, and the 2 Mandalorians went ramrod straight, “I just- need to know something.”

Jango nodded. “Anything, _ad’ika.”_

Obi-Wan cleared his throat. “The- the young Jaster had been fighting. What happened to him?” 

Jango and Khal exchanged a startled look.

“I’m not even going to pretend to know how you know about him.”

“That was Pre Viszla,” Khal supplied, “the son of the leader of _Kyr’tsad -_ their Head of Clan now. He’s been stripped of his _beskar’gam_ and his wounds have been dressed. He is officially under arrest, awaiting trial for war crimes against _Manda’yaim_ and the _Resol’nare.”_

“Resol- isn’t that your creed?” he interrupted. “How do you commit crimes against your creed?”

“By attacking a camp that has both _aliit_ and _ad’e_ in them,” Jango said with a grin that was more bared teeth than anything else. “There were _Kyr’tsad_ here, too. One of them died in the initial attack, covering the _ad’e_ back into the dropship.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t aim for the dropships first,” Obi-Wan blurted out.

Both Mandalorians flinched.

“Sorry,” he muttered, ducking his head.

“No,” Jango sighed, “you have a point. Maybe if- well. Tor knew the _ad’e_ were in the dropships, he wasn’t _shabuir_ enough to do that. Even if he did attack us. And the camp. Ugh, that _hut’uun aruetii shabuir_ of a _dar’manda.”_

Jango’s familiar litany of curses was almost a comfort.

Khal drew his attention with a light squeeze of his hand. “Before we begin, _ad’ika, ni ceta._ This will likely be unpleasant. However, let me make it clear that you can choose _not_ to answer at any point in time.”

Obi-Wan glanced between him and Jango. The older boy’s fingers were fluttering, tapping soundlessly against his thigh.

“You want to ask about Bandomeer, don’t you?”

Jango spat out a curse, throwing himself upright as he started muttering to himself. Obi-Wan flinched away from him and Khal neatly slid in between them, radiating calm. When Jango turned and saw their change in position, he winced.

 _“Ni ceta, ad’ika_. I’m not helping, am I?” he asked Khal, rueful.

“By Bandomeer, you meant the nonsense that went on in their mines last year, didn’t you?” Khal asked Jango, still gently cradling Obi-Wan’s hand in their own.

“Yeah,” the older boy muttered, “we heard about that _osik,_ but the Meerian government wanted it settled internally; we were only contracted to mop up the dregs. Felt karking good to smash my fist into a slaver’s face - or 6. For _Manda’s_ sake, we heard they nearly blew up the whole planet.”

“Nearly,” Obi-Wan agreed with a calm he’d borrowed from Khal, one he didn’t quite feel.

“You were there? HOw long-?” Jango began to demand, horrified, and then retreated at the look on his face. _“Ni ceta, ad’ika-_ you don’t have to answer that question, it was a dumb one, anyway. I’m not helping, am I?” The older boy was babbling, now. “Yeah, I think I should just…just…”

Obi-Wan looked directly at Jango. “Thanks for looking out for me. It’s a little weird, but- thanks.”

Jango looked stricken, his eyes filling with tears. Khal leant forward, cutting off his view.

“Go look for Myles and Nezra, Jango,” they said in their soft, soothing voice. Jango bit off a sob, turned, and fled.

“I- didn’t mean-.”

 _“Naak, ad’ika,_ it’s not your fault. Jango has issues of his own to sort out, but Nezra will help him and Myles will remind him that he is not alone in this,” Khal murmured.

“And…which of the 2 are you here for?”

Khal sighed. “Perhaps a little bit of both, _ad’ika,”_ they conceded.

Obi-Wan gave a little tug of their linked hands. Khal still felt so warm. He drew in a deep breath. “What do you want to know about Bandomeer?”

“Did anyone touch you, _ad’ika?”_

For a long moment, he was tempted to be, as Nield liked to call him, a git about things. It would be so easy to snap back at Khal, throw that well-meaning concern of theirs back into their placid face.

The moment was so long that Khal cleared his throat and attempted to clarify.

Obi-Wan sighed and shook his head to cut them off. “No, you don’t have to explain, I know what you mean. I won’t be difficult about it.” He closed his eyes, then released his memories into the Force. “No, no one touched me, not in the way you’re concerned with, at least.”

When he opened his eyes, he saw Khal’s mouth thin. “Plenty of other marks were left. They were-,” Khal’s nostrils flared as their outrage did, before they managed to regain control, “-fairly typical marks we see on former slaves, except for the ones on your back [2].”

Obi-Wan looked down at their joined hands. Khal’s palm was large and smooth, carefully moisturised to keep their weapon callouses from being too rough on their patients’ skin. If he really tried to focus, he might just be able to make out the scent of their moisturiser, something fruity and warm.

“I don’t think I’ll tell you,” he said in the end.

Khal merely nodded, none of the disappointment they were feeling showing on their face. “How are you now, _ad’ika?_ I know I checked your head wound earlier, but how does it feel to you?

“I thought I lost a tooth,” he confessed. “It mostly feels okay though.”

“There is a _vod_ who has a way with dentals,” Khal said. “Are you good to keep going?”

“You mean we aren’t done with the questions?” It had kind of felt like Khal was done with the questions.

“Not quite,” Khal allowed. “I think we need to continue, _ad’ika,_ but only if you can handle it.”

“If you don’t tell me what it is, I won’t know if I can,” he pointed out.

Khal’s face softened. Obi-Wan suddenly realised that he couldn’t quite guess what age Khal was, despite their humanoid appearance. They had no facial hair and their clean-shaven face was soft, too, lined by their frankly, quite marvellous head of hair. That colour would be a sign of age in a human, but Khal wasn’t one.

“How long have you been growing your hair for?”

They burst out laughing. “That was not a question I expected to be asked,” they said, still chuckling. “It has been almost 4 standard years since I cut any significant length of hair, although I do regularly trim the ends.”

“Does it mean anything?” he asked. “In Stewjoni or Mandalorian?”

“Just that _Stewjoni’ad_ are a somewhat vain people, I’m afraid,” Khal chuckled. “Our hair was meant to be noticeable.”

“Oh. You’re going to tell me about being Stewjoni.” Obi-Wan glanced toward the ship’s entryway. “Should I get the others in? Or at least Khiyosh?”

Khal gently squeezed his hand. “The details are- largely personal, and I will explain why it would be for the best that in the future, you only ever identify yourself as human. There is nothing in your general appearance to deny it, and the genome is undetectable unless specifically tested against. It would…be for the best if you never mentioned Stewjoni ever again.”

“I don’t understand,” he said blankly.

Khal squeezed his hand again, although it seemed like this time, they were drawing strength from him.

“To most people in the galaxy, Stewjon is a myth, and _Stewjoni’ad_ work very hard to keep it that way. The planet is deliberately difficult to find and those who leave rarely, if ever, return.” Khal was speaking very quickly, their breath hitching above their regular pace. They seemed to be taking the ‘ripping off the bacta patch’ approach to this explanation.

“Very few _Stewjoni’ad_ leave the planet willingly. It is an insular culture. _Stewjoni’ad_ are a largely nurturing, family-centred culture but are also strictly self-regulated. We must be, because we have been bred to be. All _Stewjoni’ad_ were biologically altered by another civilisation on the brink of extinction for the purpose of bearing their young.”

“You’re saying words,” Obi-Wan stated, “but they’re not making any sense.”

Khal grimaced. “ _Stewjoni’ad_ are incredibly fertile regardless of gender, and there are- certain markers in our genetic code that allow us to carry the children of any similar-sized sentient to term. Multiple pregnancies is a norm. To that end, you have a birth control implant in you; I’ve dated it at 14 standard years.”

“I’ve had it for as long as I’ve been alive,” he said flatly.

“All _Stewjon’ikaad’e_ are chipped at birth with implants,” Khal told him bluntly, “and for good reason. There was a _Stewjoni’ad’ika_ once, 11 standard years of age and 6 months pregnant.” Obi-Wan fought to keep from gaping and suspected he wasn’t entirely successful. “They were too far along to safely abort, so we did what we could.” Khal shook their head, their emotions roiling in the Force. “They both died anyway.

“The first rule of thumb about being _Stewjoni’ad_ \- is that you never, _ever_ admit to it. And you never, ever out anyone, either.”

“You did.”

Khal winced. “It was a slip of the tongue. This is the last place I ever expected to find another - Nezra is my _mir’baar’ur,_ she knows about me, as does Jaster. However, I must apologise for taking that choice from you.”

“I…don’t know if I can accept your apology yet, let alone anything else that you’re saying,” he admitted.

Khal sighed, sweeping their free hand through their hair. “Fair enough, _ad’ika_. I will abide by whatever you decide.

“One more thing, and we can move on: I’ve begun programming another implant for you. The lifespan of a regular implant is about 20 standard years, and _Stewjoni’ad_ have the best birth control in the entire galaxy. However, you have been living an especially difficult life.

“It is my professional medical advice that you have your implant switched out as soon as possible, just to be on the safe side.”

“How do I know it’s not a tracker instead?” he challenged. “How do I know you’re not planning to do the same thing to me?”

Khal violently flinched, their disgust and sorrow welling up in the Force. “It- I could never. To do such a thing would make me _demagolka;_ I would be branded _dar’mando_ and exiled from _Manda’yaim_ permanently, if not executed outright. You are more than welcome to examine the implant at your leisure before you make a decision.”

Obi-Wan tried to calm his rapidly beating heart. “I will. Look, there’s a reason why I never asked questions when I was told I was nearly human. I was never looking for a culture or a past.” He had come to the Order still swaddled but at peace with the Force. Obi-Wan sorely wanted an iota of that peace back.

“I understand,” Khal said quietly, “and I apologise for the grief this information may have brought you. However, it was still imperative that you were made aware of this aspect of your nature now and not when your implant failed.”

Obi-Wan flushed.

 _“Ad’ika.”_ Khal caught both his hands this time, even if they were extremely careful not to jostle his IV. “Because you have travelled, because you were _jetti’ad,_ you know what this means more than your _vod’e._ This is not a dismissal of their worth or abilities, but- just a reminder.”

“What is it, Khal.” He wasn’t so far gone as to ask the other to spit it out, but he was quickly reaching that point.

“If _Stewjoni’ad_ were not so insular and vicious when provoked, _ad’ika,_ if Stewjoni was not so hard to find, it might have been another Ryloth.”

His gut reaction was to gag, but there was nothing left in his belly save bile. Still, Khal had a small plast basin ready, just in case.

“I am not telling you not to trust, _ad’ika,_ ”Khal coaxed, their soft hands softer against his sweaty forehead, “I would not dare, given the liberties I have taken on your behalf already. I only ask that you be careful with your trust. For _Stewjoni’ad,_ it is a heavy thing.”

Khal had water ready for him, too, just a touch warm to soothe the burn in his throat.

“The rest is far less pressing,” they continued, lightly petting his hair. They were probably aiming for reassuring, but given the bombs they had already dropped, they missed that by a system or 2. Obi-Wan shot them a dry look, and they at least appeared apologetic.

“Some dietary information,” they continued. “An ideal Stewjoni diet is almost vegetarian in nature: leaves, stems, and roots in a soup or stew. Carbohydrates are fine, but meat proteins are almost too rich to process. I can imagine you would enjoy meat given the flavour they lend to food, but it has little to no additional nutrients for _Stewjoni’ad.”_

“Does tea count?” he wondered aloud. “Leaves in a soup.”

Khal snorted. “You can subsist of tea for a period of time, but it is not sustainable in the long-term.”

“Is that why my shits are worse when I do have any meat?” he asked, going for blunt and factual. There probably wasn’t much he could be embarrassed about in front of Khal, not anymore.

Khal’s smile was a small, crooked thing, their jewel-toned eyes glittering with amusement.

“Very possibly, yes,” they replied. “There are only a handful of substances _Stewjoni’ad_ are allergic to, but a reaction is almost always fatal, so I would advise caution. However, 4 out of those 5 substances can only be found in the Stewjoni system. In all my years, I have never encountered any of them.”

“Your years,” Obi-Wan echoed. “I can’t tell how old you are. What _is_ the lifespan of a Stewjoni?”

Khal sighed. “Sometimes the easiest questions are also the most difficult to answer. I am afraid I cannot say, _ad’ika,_ because I do not know. I left Stewjoni at 20 standard years and have never returned. Currently I am close to 70; 68 to be exact.”

Obi-Wan stared. That was older than Master Jinn, not that Khal looked it. If anything, he would have guessed Khal no more than 30 standard years, and definitely younger than Jaster, who was at least in his mid-30s. Although - he supposed he didn’t have to call Jinn that anymore. It was more out of habit than actual respect; if he were being honest with himself, Jinn had lost most of his respect on Bandomeer, and then all of it by the time he’d left Melida/Daan.

“I do not know how being Force-sensitive will affect you; you are the only Force-sensitive _stewjoni’ad_ I have ever met.”

“That’ll be fun to figure out,” he muttered, pushing himself to sit upright. Khal helped him settle instead of pushing him back down, which won them a tentative tick in his mental counter.

“You said you were programming that implant - are you a slicer, too?”

Khal’s small, crooked smile returned. “They are the result of a misspent youth, I’m afraid. It started as a hobby; most of these things do, I think. Between being _baar’ur_ and a slicer, I don’t actually see much action. I do know how to fight and regularly spar, of course, but I do not see many front lines _,”_ they added.

“You should also know that _Stewjoni’ad_ were bred to be hardier, to take more damage, to heal faster,” they said quietly. “It is- not permission to be foolhardy, but should you continue to lead your _vod’e,_ you and they should take that into account.”

“Khiyosh is going to be a nightmare,” Obi-Wan sighed, eyeing Khal speculatively, and then threw caution to the wind and leant forward, letting his forehead thunk on their bicep. Khal read as startled, even when they didn’t so much as flinch, but then a quiet, gut-deep pleasure began to radiate from them. If Khal were Zygerrian, he thought they would start purring.

They slowly raised their arm, carefully sliding him against their shoulder, and raised their hand to lightly scratch at their nape. Forget Khal, _he_ was going to start purring at any moment.

“This would be an apt moment to tell you that _Stewjoni’ad_ are a physical people who thrive under constant contact. I hope this information helps you know yourself better.”

It…kind of made sense. The Young were generally cuddly, Cerasi and Nield some of the worst offenders, and despite the constant violence, he’d slept better piled with them since he’d left the Temple. Even back in the creche, the Initiates were constantly gathering in piles, although they were always careful to mind Quin.

“I don’t think I could know myself _worse,_ ” he retorted, more impolite than he meant to be. “The creche was-.”

Truly, no one had questioned his designation as human. How could they, when he appeared as baseline human as they came, apart from a genetic quirk with his hair? Even if redheaded humans were undeniably rare, they were naturally occurring. Crechemaster Zhev Tay couldn’t have known that his stinkier shits came from overconsumption of meat because his digestive system didn’t require it.

Not when there was Bant to think of and her strict dietary requirements; or Quinlan and his inability to permit any skin contact till he’d been chosen as a Padawan; or Reeft, who slept in separate rooms that mimicked the atmospheric pressure of Dressel. At a glance - even at a stare, he was no different from Garen or Siri or even Bruck Chun.

He could understand that the camouflage was meant for his species’ benefit - and it was still so strange to even _think_ that what he’d thought were mere preferences were actual requirements. He could accept it, intellectually. What that would mean for him, personally, was something that would only be realised after an indefinite period of meditation and self-reflection. Obi-Wan was self-aware enough to know that there were definitely going to be some bad days thrown in that mix.

“Would you like to rest?” Khal asked. _“’Alor_ and your _vod’e_ would like to speak to you about your actions where Viszla and the _dha’kad’au_ were involved, but that can wait. I gave you…a lot to think about.”

“I don’t know if I can sleep,” he admitted. “I might need to meditate, I’m not all-.” He wiggled his hand to illustrate, grimacing at the vagueness of his answer. “And contact helps, you said?”

Khal smiled, gently brushing a hand through his hair. “Very much so. I can request your _vod’e_ come in, but I will advise them to save the questioning for later: _baar’ur’s_ orders.”

Obi-Wan was able to return a fraction of that smile. “Ces and Nield definitely know what that means.”

Khal’s muted presence flickered with self-satisfaction before they nodded, smoothing down his hair. _“Naak, ad’ika,_ ” they murmured, withdrawing slowly enough that he could remain upright on his own. Obi-Wan did miss the contact and his reflex was to beat himself about it - before he remembered that it was alright to, that he needed the contact the same way Quin didn’t.

“Obi!”

Cerasi and Nield dashed in, thankfully skidding to a stop right before they crashed into the medbed. They did wordlessly clamber in, limbs going everywhere until it felt like he was being surrounded by 2 very affectionate octopuses. He sighed, relaxing into their bodies while Nield nuzzled one side of his face and Cerasi got the other.

“Kriff, that’s karking adorable,” Myles cooed from where he was draped over Jango’s shoulders.

“The _ad’ike_ are going to rest,” Khal said, shooing the younger 2 Mandalorians back outside. “That means the 2 of you, too,” they added with a pointed look at Cerasi and Nield. “Whatever questions you have for the _ad’ika_ can wait a revolution or 2.”

“Obi-Wan?” Nield pressed.

He grimaced. “Yeah, I need a bit of time to- come to terms with things.”

“I would also suggest you speak with Nezra or another _mir’baar’ur, ad’ike,”_ Khal suggested.

“Khiyosh is speaking with Ronei,” Cerasi said uncertainly.

“And Ronei will undoubtedly do what she can for your _vod’e,”_ Khal nodded. “However, I could not in good conscience advise Khiyosh to take you both on as _mir’baar’ur.”_

“Why not?” Nield demanded.

Obi-Wan sighed, tapping their temples together. “Nield, Khiyosh is 11 and barely has training as a medic, let alone a mind healer.”

The older boy hissed, fluffing up like an angry tooka. “We don’t need a- we’re not screwy in the head!”

Obi-Wan winced at the aggression bleeding off him.

“Nield,” Cerasi snapped with a sharp tug of his hair, making him wince. “We’re all still jumping at shadows, which might be good for army but not a government, and that’s what we’re going to have to be now.”

It sounded like they’d been up to a bit of heavy discussion of their own outside. Obi-Wan sighed, letting his head fall back on Nield’s shoulder.

“It’s okay not to be alright, you know? No one’s alright all of the time. I think I’m learning that being alright is a process rather than a state and that- maybe I’ve always been less alright than I realised.”

Cerasi and Nield exchanged a look overhead, guilt spiking between them. “Jaster and Myles had a little bit to say about that. About your scars- and how you got them.”

“And I think we’re beginning to understand why you didn’t say anything to us, or felt like you couldn’t,” Cerasi added, hugging them both tightly. “I think- we wouldn’t have known what to do if you had.”

Nield buried his face against his shoulder. “I definitely would’ve been more of a git,” he mumbled. “Sorry.”

For how thoroughly they were wrapped around him, they’d also taken absolute care to leave his neck bare. Obi-Wan blinked rapidly against the sudden urge to cry.

Cerasi kissed his cheek, resettling against him and Nield. How did her knee even get there?

“We have you, Obi,” she whispered, “we do.”

He closed his eyes, and let them.

* * *

When he next woke up, they’d slumped into a pile with Cerasi at the bottom, Obi-Wan facedown against her throat, and Nield blanketed them both like a particularly needy varactyl. He felt surprisingly peaceful despite the minefield his head had become - maybe not so surprisingly, thanks to one of those mines Khal had dropped.

“Hullo, sleepyhead.”

He smiled at the sound of Cerasi’s voice but couldn’t quite shift, given the weight of Nield keeping his head in place.

“Here, let me,” she said, and he saw her hand extend out of the corner of his eye, doing _something_ to Nield that had him chuffing and shifting enough for Obi-Wan to wriggle his head loose.

He beamed at Cerasi. “Thanks.”

She used that same hand to scratch his head. “You’re very welcome.”

Nield growled, tightening his stranglehold around both their middles.

“How long have we been asleep?” Obi-Wan asked.

“A revolution and a bit,” Cerasi replied, laughing when he pointedly butted his head against her hand. “Feel better?”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “You 2 being here - helped.”

Cerasi’s smile was always such a joy to see, her full smile, where her happiness lit her up from the inside and lit her eyes like pale-green gems. Her hair had been cleaned and brushed out, a clear line marking where her dark roots had grown out, the bright magenta colour bleached brassy from exposure.

“What are you going to do about your hair?” he asked.

“I’m actually thinking about cutting it all off and letting the boys have the long hair for a change,” she teased. The dye used to colour her hair magenta had been a mark of her family’s standing; her father had been a leader of the Melida faction.

“It would certainly be easier to handle,” he thought aloud. “I can’t imagine the trouble Khal goes through with their hair.”

“Oh, but it’s so beautiful, though,” Cerasi cooed. “It’s so long and it sparkles in the sunlight.”

Would his hair be like that, if he grew it out? Already, this was the longest it had ever been, curling over his ears and eyebrows. The unflattering cut he’d sported for so long had been more out of habit than anything else.

“Should I grow mine out?” he wondered.

“Oh, do!” Cerasi cheered. “It’s such a lovely colour, and that way we _both_ can convince Nield to grow his out too.”

“Peer pressure?” he asked, amused.

“His hair is _wavy,_ Obi,” she stressed, _“wavy._ Do you know how much effect it takes to make my hair form even one curl?”

He started to laugh and she quickly joined in, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.

“You’re both so noisy,” Nield groused. “Leave my hair alone.”

“Grouchy grump,” Cerasi teased, ruffling the older boy’s hair.

Nield groaned, rolling onto his back beside them. “Are we getting up?”

Khiyosh was just outside their dropship with Ronei and Nezra, talking logistics, of all things. Jaster was further away, with a mind with a vaguely familiar ping; Silas, probably. Myles and Jango were with the Babbies, the former in the thick of things while the latter was still a little hesitant, standing off to one side. And Khal was walking in right now, knocking the wall to announce their presence before poking their head in to check on them.

“You’re awake,” they said, smiling. “Could you eat?”

Now that Khal had mentioned it - yes. It was a bit of a surprise, considering how he’d had some soup so recently.

Their smile widened at what they saw. “I’ll get the others as well, shall I? Khiyosh, in particularly, will have updates for you. I’ll also want to check your bandages and your IV when I’m back.”

They took that time to slowly peel themselves apart and resettle upright, Nield in the middle with his heavy arm draped over his shoulders, Cerasi tucked close on his other side with her legs thrown over theirs.

“Ah, look at you idiots,” was the first thing Khiyosh said when they first saw them. “How do you say it- dikut?”

Ronei’s helmet was back on but not Nezra’s, and her Sullustan features looked absolutely delighted by Khiyosh’s potty mouth.

 _“Di’kut,”_ she explained, _“di’kut’e_ for plural. You might want to keep an eye on your blood pressure till you have your _di’kut’alor’e_ trained.”

“Not that _cur Mand’alor_ is much better,” Ronei laughed.

“We still have _ad be’Mand’alor,”_ Nezra giggled. “Get to ‘em young, train ‘em well. Myl’ika has a good head on his shoulders, at least.”

“Remember that, _baar’ur’ike,”_ Ronei told Khiyosh seriously. “Learn which one of them is the biggest _di’kut,_ then get the others on your side to guilt trip them into coming for their scheduled check-ups.”

Khiyosh eyed all of them. “If I figure who’s the biggest _di’kut,_ those _di’kut’e_ are probably gonna find a way to turn it into a competition.”

Nield clicked his tongue irritably. “We’re not that bad, Khiyosh, stop being dramatic.”

All 3 medics - no, _4,_ as Khal came in with a laden tray, pinned him with a stare, causing him to meep at the blatant intimidation.

Jango sighed from where he’d followed Khal in, the gust of breath made robotic through his helmet’s vocoder. “Don’t tempt your fate, _ad._ It’s not worth the hypospray.” Myles patted his pauldron in comfort.

Khiyosh grinned at them, vaguely predatory. “Yeah, Ronei’s giving me _hyposprays._ I can sedate you and with the war over, you can’t even stop me.”

All 3 of them shuddered.

“Food first, threats later,” Khal interrupted, extending their tray. “Eat slowly, and only what you can. You don’t have to finish it if you can’t. _Ad’ika,_ the one on the side is yours- _nayc_ , the other side, _’lek._ ”

“Why is Obi’s different?” Khiyosh frowned, peering into the bowls.

“His system is more suited for a vegetable-based diet,” Khal replied. “Not that meat harms him, it is just unnecessary.” They paused, and Obi-Wan instinctively knew the next words out of their mouth were going to be a jibe at him. “And also gives him incredibly smelly shits.”

The whole medbay burst into uproarious laughter. Obi-Wan only sighed and got a headstart on his soup. It was different from what Khal had given him earlier, a thin, if flavourful broth that eased the gnawing ache in his stomach.

“What’s so funny?” came Jaster’s voice as he strode into the medbay, Silas at his shoulder. Jango told him, in between snorts, and set off everyone all over again.

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes at their behaviour. “It’s not _that_ funny,” he muttered.

“No, it really is,” Nield giggled, nearly crying with mirth. Cerasi couldn’t even talk yet.

“You did volunteer the information, _ad’ika,”_ Khal pointed out, offering him a serene smile. Obi-Wan blatantly rolled his eyes in their direction in lieu of a reply.

It was hardly surprising that he was the first to finish his soup. Khal put the bowl away and then began to check his head wound.

“It’s healing at a good rate, considering your malnutrition,” they said. “With the bacta and your own systems kicking in, the bandages should be able to be removed by the day after.”

Myles leant forward, draped over Jango’s shoulders. “That quick? _Ad’ika_ was a mess when he came in.”

Obi-Wan wrinkled his nose at the reminder, although more because Cerasi and Nield’s Force presences tightened protectively around him. He offered Khal his wrist. “Do I still need the IV in?”

Khal raised an eyebrow to a precise angle. “Did I or did I not mention malnutrition?”

He frowned. “Then why isn’t anyone else on a drip?”

“They also didn’t vomit 3 times in the past day,” was Khal’s bone-dry reply. Obi-Wan promptly shut up after that.

“The _ad’ika_ is almost baseline human, with a few key differences,” Khal continued. “Khiyosh, I will send you a list of substances he is fatally allergic to. However, most of those substances are incredibly rare and difficult to source.”

Khiyosh growled, jerking their thumb at him. “Have you seen this one’s luck?” they demanded.

Everyone started laughing again.

“This is going to get old very, very quickly,” Obi-Wan drawled, leaning against Nield’s shoulder.

Khal’s amusement was practically singing in the Force. “Your _Alor’e_ are clearly in good hands. Ronei has completed her evals on Cerasi and Nield as well; their dietary requirements will also be sent to you by the end of the day.”

Cerasi and Nield _stopped_ laughing while _he_ started. Khiyosh sent them all a rakish grin. “Anything else I need to keep an eye out for with these _di’kut’e?”_

“Jango, what exactly have you been teaching the _ad’ike?”_ Jaster asked with an amused huff.

“Oh, no,” Jango snickered, “it wasn’t me. It wasn’t even Myles, if you can believe it; it was all Nezra.”

Jaster glanced at the Sullustran, who just grinned and winked. “I can definitely see that.”

“Just one more thing,” Khal interrupted, mildly eyeing them until they subsided with hastily swallowed sniggers. “Physical contact is encouraged, as much as possible.”

“Medically-advised cuddles,” Khiyosh said dryly. Nield grinned down at him, resting his cheek against the top of his head.

“You are all doing a wonderful job,” Khal assured.

Jaster drew up a stool, and Silas leant against a nearby wall. Cerasi and Nield slurped down the rest of their soup, and that seemed to signal a change in the atmosphere.

“If you are up to it, _ad’ika,_ I would like to hear your version of the actions that landed in the medbay in the first place,” Jaster said. The man had since removed his helmet. “And then I think Khiyosh and Ronei have something to share, as do your _vod’e.”_

Obi-Wan frowned, his gaze ticking between the different parties. “Is that a bribe?”

Jaster winced. “That- wasn’t my meaning, I just thought to cover things in a chronological manner.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Because of Tor and the _dha’kad’au,_ usually I would have my whole council present - but they understand why that isn’t possible.”

“I don’t understand,” Obi-Wan said blankly.

“History lesson, _ner Mand’alor,”_ Myles called out before turning to them. “Tor, the _dar’mando_ you challenged, was _Kyr’tsad’alor.”_

“Oh!” he realised. “Khal told me a bit about that - you were fighting his son, who’s since become the Head of their Clan? I guess that means…Tor…is dead.”

Bloodthirsty satisfaction bled into the Force from every single Mandalorian present. Obi-Wan shuddered, huddling closer to Nield. The older boy obligingly tucked him closer, glaring suspiciously at the Mandalorians as if they were to blame.

 _“’Lek,_ Tor’s attack on our camp marked him and his allies-.”

“And that _areutii shabuir dar’mando_ Montross!” Myles jeered.

“Did you want to do the debrief instead?” Jaster asked the younger man dryly.

“It might be more entertaining,” Silas hummed.

“I have no idea why I put up with any of you,” Jaster huffed as the others began to snicker.

Obi-Wan offered him a small smile. “You set your trap and found your traitor, then.”

Jaster smirked. “We did, and then some. But to continue, those _Kyr’tsad_ who joined Tor’s attack were marked _dar’mando’e_ and those who surrendered have since been exiled from Mandalorian space for the rest of their lives. The remnants of _Kyr’tsad -_ the ones who helped protect the _ad’ike,_ the Young - they have agreed to a truce and, _ka’ra_ willing, Reintegration, depending on our ability to find enough common ground. I think we will find it - I think we will _make_ ourselves find it,” Jaster murmured, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “There has been too much death and fighting and very little reasoning. _Ad’ike,_ your presence has been a reminder of our _Resol’nare_ , of what we should truly be valuing.”

He leant forward, eyes boring into each of them with the fire of his conviction. “And for that, we will always be grateful.”

“You’re weird,” Cerasi blurted out.

Thankfully, Jaster didn’t seem to be expecting any other reply; he just gave a faint smile and turned back towards him.

“You alarmed us all when you left the ship, _ad’ika,_ especially since you had already collapsed once.”

He bit his lip, turning to look at Cerasi. Nield grunted when that movement dislodged his head.

“It’s a knack,” Khiyosh blatantly lied. “Obi’s weird like that.”

Jango abruptly pulled off his helmet. _“Ad’ika,_ remember this?” He pulled off his glove, too, baring a bandage at his wrist, and then tapped at his thigh.

Obi-Wan brightened, glancing at Ronei. “You got the trackers out, then?”

“I told you that was the first thing I’d do,” he said. “Do you remember the second?”

“Uh- something gabby manda?”

Jaster reared back, and even Khal seemed stunned. _“Ad,_ you did not,” he said, but more in shock than disapproval.

 _“Ni Kyr’tal gai sa’vod,”_ Jango said with a feral grin, gripping Obii-Wan’s forearm high enough that his fingers didn’t overlap with bandages. “There, he’s my _vod’ika._ No one’s gonna say _osik_ about my _vod’ika_ or they can deal with my fist in their face.”

Myles was definitely hiding a smile. “Jan’ika, Adoption doesn’t work like that.”

Cerasi and Nield immediately whirled on Khal. “You’d warn the others against Adoption and not your own?” Nield snarled.

 _“Nayc, ad’ike,_ it’s not-.” Jango gently squeezed his arm again before letting go. His touch lingered, though, and Obi-Wan stared down at his skin, almost expecting to see an imprint. “It’s different, if an _ad_ does it. You’re my _vod’ike;_ you saved my life out there.”

He shook his head. “I only did what I could.”

“Turns out, you could do a heck of a lot,” Jango said with a darkly amused twist of his lips. “So if anyone here has _osik_ to pull with my _vod’ike,_ you answer to _me.”_

The tension in the air was so thick he could choke on it. Silas broke it with a heavy sigh, rubbing at the top of his helmet. “What are we actually talking about?” he asked. “Because it’s definitely not the _gai bal manda_ anymore or even the _dha’kad’au.”_

“I still don’t know what _that_ is,” Obi-Wan had to point out.

“The- Darksaber, I believe you call it in Basic,” Silas explained. “There were a few _verd_ who thought they saw you holding it, but nothing was confirmed.” There was a questioning look on his dark face.

Obi-Wan’s eyes flickered between Jango and the other Mandalorians. He couldn’t remember who had been part of the conversation when he’d mentioned the Force or who had come along after. He met Jango’s eyes, dark with promised violence. For the first time, Obi-Wan looked it full in the face and didn’t flinch.

“Oh, you mean this lightsaber?” he asked, holding his hand out for the hilt to leap into his palm.

All the Mandalorians jumped, although Jango and Jaster stepped in front of them; Khal and Myles stayed carefully still; both Ronei and Nezra had leapt to their feet, although the Sullustran female was unable to hide her surprise with her helmet off.

Silas, though, had gone low in a crouch.

“Silas,” Jaster said, _“gev._ The _ad’ike_ hasn’t changed between this moment and the last, and my _ad_ swore the _gai bal manda._ That makes me his _cabur_ at the very least - although there is precedence for him calling me _Buir._ I’ll make it an order if I have to, Silas.”

Silas’s helmet turned to Jango. “You knew?” he rasped. “All this while?”

“Yes,” Jango hissed. “It doesn’t matter what he used to be, he’s _mandokar’la,_ you know that, same as everyone here. Besides, I’ve claimed him as _vod’ike;_ I’ll kick the _shebs_ of anyone who says otherwise.”

“I’m duty-bound to help Jan’ika with the _shebs-_ kicking, remember,” Myles called out.

Silas straightened, his posture tall and crisp. “The _verd’e_ never accept him, you know that.”

Obi-Wan supposed he ought to be hurt by that. He might have been, if he weren’t so used to just…not being wanted. In the Force, Silas was all rigid, righteous duty.

“Not like we kriffing need you either,” Khiyosh hissed, clambering onto the medbed and plastering themselves all over him. A glance over at Cerasi and Nield revealed that the older 2 Young appeared deliberately relaxed, but there was murder in their eyes.

“I think,” Khal said quietly, “you need to step outside and cool your head, _verd.”_

A sharp spike of regret jolted through Silas before he rapidly reined in his emotions. It was impossible to tell from his body language. Without another word, the Korun turned and left.

Jango sighed, his shoulders dropping. “Myles, could you make sure he doesn’t-?”

“I’ll go, _ner Alor’ad,”_ Nezra volunteered, pulling on her bucket. Before she left, she turned to look at them, all 4 Young piled on the medbed, Obi-Wan’s wrist awkwardly sticking out to accommodate the IV.

“For what it’s worth, _ad’ike,_ I'm sorry. There is history, between _Mando’ad_ and _jetii._ It is- hard to forgive and forget, harder for some. But you are _ad’e;_ you should not bear our grievances.”

“Obi told us,” Cerasi snapped, her tone biting and vicious. “He knew there was a chance you’d hurt him for who he _was,_ something he’d never had any choice in.” Myles ducked his head, cowed. “And the choice he did make? Was to leave them for _us.”_

You could’ve heard a pin drop in the medbay.

“So you can take your apologies,” Cerasi hissed, “and shove them where the sun doesn’t shine. I think we’d like to be alone now.”

The Mandalorians filed out wordlessly except for Khal, who quietly reminded them to drink some water, and that they would return with another light meal in a couple of revolutions. Cerasi and Khiyosh watched them like a shriek-hawk, but Nield was still lying against him, intentionally lax. There was nothing but sorrow and regret trailing Khal out the ship.

“Hey.”

Obi-Wan turned his head at the light brush of knuckles against his cheek. He couldn’t move much more than that, anchored as he was by his IV and Khiyosh in his lap.

Nield was peering at him, dark eyes intent. Cerasi had wormed her legs under herself to peek over Nield’s shoulder, an unfamiliar scowl on her face.

“Don’t,” he said, reaching up to poke her between her eyebrows. Cerasi squeaked, scrunching up her face. “Your face’ll freeze like that and then Nield’s going to have to be the pretty Young. You wouldn’t do that to us, would you?”

Khiyosh burst out laughing first, clinging to his middle. Cerasi was next, sprawling over Nield’s shoulders. Nield rolled his eyes, but his mouth was twitching.

“Hardy-karky-har,” he drawled. “You’re a regular riot, Obi-Wan, you and your stinky shits.”

That set them off again, Cerasi wheezing over Nield’s shoulder as the older boy snickered at the look on his face.

“That’s going to get old real soon,” he pouted.

“Not any time soon,” Nield wheedled, catching his chin so he could look him in the eye. This close, Obi-Wan could see how the mirth faded from those deep, chestnut orbs, gravity taking their place.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Cerasi was right, you were the one who wanted to give ‘em a chance.”

Khiyosh glanced at the lightsaber hilt that was still in his hand. “Is it really just because of that thing?”

Obi-Wan winced. “It’s a little more complicated than that. There are- some things that mark a Jedi-trained person as, uh, a Jedi-trained person.” His Padawan tunic hadn’t lasted 2 months into the war, and he’d worn cast-offs from Melida/Daan ever since. His Padawan braid was also long gone, as was his lightsaber, but-.

“Use of the Force- magic, if you will,” he said before Khiyosh could, pointedly rolling his eyes. “I’ve lost my lightsaber, my tunics, and my braid ages ago. Nezra was right, there was a war a long time ago. Jedi and Mandalorians generally don’t get along.”

“But you aren’t a Jedi anymore,” they said blankly.

Obi-Wan set the Darksaber to orbiting his hand. Its crystal was singing, the first time it had been touched by the Force in so, so long, it crooned to him. The others were staring, entranced.

“I don’t think they really see it that way,” he shrugged, allowing the Darksaber to drop back into his hand.

Obi-Wan…hadn’t done this in a while - since Jinn’s last political posting, actually, and he would never have thought about it if Silas hadn’t reacted in that manner, hadn’t even thought to be cautious during his conversation with Khal. He let the Force rush out of him, flooding the medbay and the adjoining ship. He’d only been able to do this for individual rooms in a suite before, but he’d had a _lot_ of practice with the Force these past months.

“Khiyosh.” They straightened at the sound of his voice. “Let me up.”

“Obi?” Cerasi pushed up on her knees, her hands on Nield’s shoulders for balance. “Obi, what is it?”

He didn’t have a lightsaber clip anymore. He wasn’t expecting the pain that lanced through him at that realisation. Between his IV and needing to keep one hand free...having to set the Darksaber back down was harder than he expected.

Listening bugs zipped over from all over the ship to hover over his hand.

“What are those?” Nield demanded.

“Listening bugs,” Obi-Wan said grimly. “You’re right, I never should have trusted them.”

He clambered to his feet, using the stand his IV was hooked on for balance.

“You shouldn’t be getting up,” Khiyosh fretted.

“I need to do this,” he bit out, and if he used the Force to assist him, no one needed to know.

Khal was hovering just outside, Jango and Myles nearby, their helmets bent together. When Khal saw him, alarm pulsed, and they quickly rushed over.

 _“Ad’ika,_ you should still be resting-.”

“I trusted you,” he ground out. “Thanks for nothing.” He shoved the listening bugs at them.

“Wait, what are-?” Khal inhaled sharply.

“Khal?” Jango had walked over. “What’s going on?”

“You should go finish your job. Clearly, we’re done,” Obi-Wan said.

 _“Vod’ika,_ what-?”

“Don’t,” he hissed, “call me things you don’t mean.”

 _“Ad’ika, gedet’ye,”_ Khal begged, although they were smart enough not to touch him. “We wouldn’t- this is not the Way. _‘Alor_ would never - this violates every principal of patient confidentiality, besides.” Much to his shock - much to all their shock, judging by the ripple of emotion around them - Khal dropped to one knee. “You can tell if I’m telling the truth, _ad’ika.”_

Obi-Wan swallowed. Watching Khal bend their knee to him was- strange. He didn’t think he liked it.

“Get up,” he rasped.

Khal wordlessly obeyed.

He went to wrap his arms around himself before remembering the IV. “What do you want?”

“Give us a chance,” Khal said immediately. “I didn’t put these bugs there, _ori’haat._ But I will find out who did, I’ll track them down myself.”

Obi-Wan lifted his chin. “And if word’s gone out regardless?”

Bitterness and sorrow swirled within Khal, the strongest emotions he’d felt from them thus far. Clearly, he remembered their conversation. 

“Then I would stay with you in whatever capacity you would have me,” they said promptly.

Myles gasped loudly.

Jango groaned, covering his helmet with his glove. Despite himself, Obi-Wan felt his mouth twitch.

 _“Verd,_ you know I love you, but sometimes you’re an absolute _utreekov.”_ Jango’s helmet swivelled towards him. _“Vod’ika,_ I meant every word. _Buir_ would never do something like this, _ori’haat._ If this was more of our bullshit we got you tangled up in, we’ll clean up our messes if it’s the last thing we do.”

The Force swirled around them, thoughtful and pensive. It was still unconscionably fond of Jaster, but if there was one thing he’d learnt from Melida/Daan, it was that the Force was more interested in _balance_ than willy-nilly definitions of Light and Dark.

“I trusted you,” he said quietly.

“I know, _vod’ika,_ and the past tense breaks my heart,” Jango returned. Obi-Wan waited a beat.

“If I’m honest, I was kind of expecting you to say something there,” he told Myles when.

 _“Haran,_ Myles,” Jango muttered, “how are you still saying the wrong thing while saying nothing at all?”

He could tell that Myles was smiling as he stepped forward, resting one hand on Jango’s pauldron. Despite everything, Obi-Wan honestly didn’t think Myles or anyone he was close to would do something like this. There was something so very pure and joyous in the man’s core; it was very likely what the Babbies responded to so instinctively.

He hadn’t forgotten Khal’s alarm at his accusation over the implant and their insistence that doing such a thing would make them the same as the Elders, even if his instinctive anger at the listening bugs had buried it. Maybe…Khal wouldn’t, Myles wouldn’t, Jango wouldn’t. But the fact still remained that there were a lot of others out here apart from the 3 of them, and Silas had just proved he couldn’t be trusted.

“There’s a time and place for jokes, _vod’ika,_ and I am capable of holding my tongue,” Myles was saying.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Jango muttered.

Obi-Wan was certain the young man was grinning under his helmet. “With so many things happening I never managed to say it, and I know _‘Alor_ would want to thank you personally, too, but- thank you for bringing Jan’ika back to us.”

“Technically, I think he brought me back,” Obi-Wan muttered, ducking his head.

“But you kept him alive long enough for that to happen,” Myles returned. “I know traditionalists will give you a hard time but I will _always_ be grateful, no matter how you managed it. I meant my word, too, _vod’ika._ Jan’ika might have spoken the vow, but-.”

“He speaks for you, too?” Obi-Wan asked, sceptical.

Myles practically brightened in the Force while Jango was burning up with embarrassment. “You could say that.”

“You’re taking a very long time to throw their bullshit in their faces. Am I gonna have to shoot someone in the throat?”

Nield was standing at the entrance of the dropship, rifle in hand.

“No,” Obi-Wan said slowly, “Nield, it’s okay.”

Nield slunk behind him, his fingers brushing his lower back. “You said that last time and look what happened.”

“I’ll bring this to _Buir,”_ Jango said. “We’ll track down whoever put the bugs there and plug the leak. Permanently.”

Nield sneered. “Pretty words.”

 _“Haat Mando’ade_ keep their word; this is the Way.”

“This is the Way,” Myles and Khal intoned.

“You should rest, _ad’ika,”_ Khal added gently. “You should still be resting. I will keep you updated.”

“Right,” Nield muttered. “Hold this.” He handed Obi-Wan his rifle.

“Nield? What are yo- _Nield!”_

The older boy simply picked him up in a princess carry, IV stand and all, and carried him back into the dropship. Myles was howling with laughter, needing to cling to Jango to even stay upright. He could be that much of a git this time, Obi-Wan mulishly decided, and used the Force to make Myles’ glove slide off Jango’s armour, causing him to fall over.

After a stunned moment, with both Jango and Khal staring down at him, Myles threw his head back and laughed even harder.

Obi-Wan let out a huff, leaning back against Nield’s shoulder. “He really should paint a hyenax on his armour. Maybe he was one in a past life.”

He could feel Nield glance down at him. “You believe in that sorta thing? Past lives?”

Obi-Wan just shrugged as Nield laid him out on the medbed where Cerasi immediately set out to press him into the medbed while Khiyosh fussed about getting his IV set up again. “Don’t think I can afford not to." 

“So?” Cerasi demanded. “What did they say?”

He twirled a bit of faded magenta hair around his finger. “That they didn’t do it. That Jaster wouldn’t. And I- believe them.”

“Your magic?” Khiyosh asked.

As much as it bothered him, if Myles was to be believed about traditionalists, it might just be safer to refer to the Force that way. Obi-Wan snorted to himself. He hadn’t even known he was Stewjoni in the first place and he’d already given up so many pieces of being a Jedi while being on Melida/Daan, what was one more?

Cerasi caught his face between her hands. “Obi,” she insisted.

“It doesn’t matter what it’s called,” he said, “it’s still the same thing.”

“’Course it is,” Khiyosh said simply. “It’s yours.”

Obi-Wan was startled into laughing. “That’s not how it works, Khiyosh!”

“Nope!” the medic chirped, rolling onto the medbed alongside them, “I don’t wanna hear another word about it. Your magic’s your magic, and that’s that.”

He smiled, tipping his head so they could nuzzle together. “You’re an absolute treasure, Khiyosh.”

“And don’t I know it!”

He grunted when Nield’s weight landed on top of Cerasi, although the older boy took pity on them both and rolled onto their other side, even if he left one leg hooked over them both. “So you really don’t think they put the bugs here?”

Obi-Wan sighed. “No, but - I’m worried about the other dropships, too,” he whispered. “What if it wasn’t only ours?”

“What's Jango going to do about it?” Cerasi prodded.

“He promised to get to the bottom of it,” he replied, tugging her down so she would press her full weight into him. The warmth of her was…a comfort, somehow. “If there’s a leak, Khal said they’d stay. However we wanted.”

Cerasi shifted on top of him uneasily. “Is that…allowed?”

He shrugged as much as he could, pinned under her as he was. “I don’t know. Jango and Myles were surprised, at least.”

Khiyosh curled closer. Cerasi took the hint and wrapped an arm around their shoulders.

“I- is it bad if I kinda hope it works out?” they asked quietly. “Ronei said she’d talked to some of the other medics and helped get a group together that’d stay too, for awhile.” They looked at them, uncertainty bleeding into their hazel eyes. “I mean, Metzizi and I kinda fell into doing this gig, but I’m good at it, even Ronei and Nezra said so.”

“You are,” Obi-Wan said at once. Amputations had been Khiyosh’s idea, after losing 3 Young outright to a landmine with 3 more still critical, and a Babby. Mines had been a death sentence for the Young at the time; if just one limb had been mangled, it didn’t matter that the other 3 were in pristine condition - they died anyway. It had been a last resort, and Obi-Wan and Nield had to do the amputations, simply because Khiyosh didn’t have the strength to cleanly cleave through bone.

It might have been the first but it hadn’t been the last. The feeling of carving through bone still made him sick.

The Babby caught in the explosion eventually died, and one of the Young, but the other 2 survived. No Young ever had before.

“Before, while Khal was talking to you, Jaster was talking to us about the books they had, that they’d share with us,” Cerasi said quietly. “About- different types of government and stuff, and how to get a planet set up.”

“Restarting our farms,” Nield added, his voice pained. His family had been land-owning before they were killed in the war. He’d been little more than a Babby at the time and could only watch his family’s fields shrivel and die.

Cerasi snorted, her mood turning. “I guess it kinda worked out, there being so few us left. We won’t- we won’t be able to reach a lot of the planet for a very long time. Hopefully, this’ll give it time to heal and grow. And in the meantime, we can get started on learning because we choose to, not because we had to.”

Obi-Wan sank back into the medbed, staring up at the sterile ceiling. “It’s weird,” he mumbled, “to think that it’s actually over. Like, almost, but-.”

“I know what you mean,” Nield said, holding his hand. “The Mandalorians are weird, but they’re not exactly Elder.”

“Not all of them,” Cerasi allowed.

“They really are weird though, huh?” Khiyosh muttered sleepily.

Obi-Wan smiled and ran a hand through their hair, urging their medic closer into their little pile. “So, so weird,” he agreed.

* * *

His eyes snapped open, his heartbeat thudding in his ears. Cerasi was still sprawled over him and Nield half again over her, Khiyosh tangled in there somewhere between all of them. No one else was awake, so he would only have one chance at this.

The Darksaber’s crystal was pulsing alongside his heartbeat, that moment drawing ever closer as they both lay in wait. And then-.

Its hilt snapped into his palm and flared on, immediately deflecting blaster fire. The motions were automatic despite the months it’d been since he’d last run forms, adrenaline giving him the boost he needed to Force-shove the 3 Young behind him, ignoring their shouts. He couldn’t aim the ricochets for shit but that didn’t matter as he pressed forward, backing the Mandalorian out of the medbay. The blasterfire was coming faster and faster now in their panic but Obi-Wan didn’t care; it felt too damn good to be wielding a lightsaber again.

He blocked one last blast and carved their blaster in twain with an upswing, uncaring if he carved a few fingers off along the way. His next strike took their head.

All he could hear were his own breaths, wheezing like great ironworks. Lights flared on and alarms sounded, and a hand gripped his arm. It was only because he knew Cerasi’s touch so well that he didn’t carve that off, too.

He powered down the Darksaber and turned to look at them. “Are any of you hurt?”

Nield winced, and Obi-Wan’s breath caught.

“I didn’t get outta the way in time,” he muttered, but Obi-Wan knew the truth. If he’d been better, if he’d been able to calculate the ricochet angles correctly in his head, he’d've been able to take the intruder out with their own blasterfire, Nield wouldn’t have gotten hurt.

Maybe if he’d just pretended to be asleep the whole time, they would have just taken the Darksaber and left them all alone.

The older boy made an impatient noise, shouldering past Cerasi. “Look, you git, you did the best you could with what you had, okay? It’s just a scratch; I’ll get over it. Who the kriff was it-?”

A deathly silence rang in his head. The decapitated body on the ground - the one _he’d_ decapitated - was…young. Not one of theirs, of course, but still…young.

 _“Ad’ike!”_ Khal dashed in, their hair streaming behind them like liquid silver. For once, none of them were distracted by it. “There’s been a breakout; a guard is down and Pre is-.”

Pre. The Young Jaster had been fighting with, the one who’d made them all doubt the man, no matter how temporarily. Clearly, they should have been doubting him instead.

* * *

He…couldn’t remember what had happened next. There was more shouting and more people piling into their dropship; Khiyosh had pulled Nield and Cerasi away, and…no one had stopped them. When he next came to, he was back in the medbed and the ship was empty except for Khal, who was sitting beside them.

 _“Ad’ika,”_ Khal said softly. “Are you back with us now?”

Obi-Wan slowly blinked and his tongue felt heavy in his mouth. “How many times have you asked me that?” he whispered.

“It’s nearly dawn,” they replied.

Not what he’d asked, but to be fair, Obi-Wan hadn’t answered their question first.

“Nield was hit,” he said.

“A glancing shot,” Khal said. “It’ll heal without a scar. Khiyosh dealt with it.” They paused. “Did you realise you were hit, too?”

Obi-Wan blinked again.

“It was very much not a glancing shot,” Khal said. “Cerasi explained that you’d used the _dha’kad’au_ to block Pre’s blasterfire, but it appears you missed one. It nearly hit your lung, _ad’ika._ ”

He hadn’t felt it then; he still wasn’t feeling anything now. He’d forgotten about his IV, too; he didn’t know if he had cut through it with the Darksaber or torn it right out of his hand. Would all of that hurt more once he came back to himself? Probably. Wasn’t that the way the world worked?

“We discovered who set the bugs,” Khal continued. “It was the _aruetii,_ Montross. Pre had the receiver, it was how he knew where to look for the _dha’kad’au._ I am only sorry we did not discover this sooner.”

Obi-Wan had been so angry and betrayed just a few hours ago. “They’re not coming back, are they?”

 _“Ad’ika,_ that’s not-.”

“I don’t blame them,” he said. “I wouldn’t, either.” He could only imagine how they were feeling. “I killed a Young. He wasn’t one of ours, but I killed a _Young._ ”

They were already stripping off their helmet and gloves.

 _“Ad’ika,_ may I hold you?”

Obi-Wan flung himself into Khal’s lap. His chest did hurt then, just like he deserved. He was crying before he even landed.

 _“Nayc, ad’ika,”_ Khal crooned to him in Mandalorian, petting his head and shoulders but never touching his neck. Cerasi and Nield must have told them; they knew how much he couldn’t stand to be touched there, even if they hadn’t known why. Khal was speaking, but Obi-Wan couldn’t hear him over the sound of his weeping.

“I can’t stay here,” he sobbed. He couldn’t stand to be around them and know they no longer trusted him, no longer wanted him. Nield had carried him just yesterday. He could still feel Cerasi’s weight over him. It was all he had left of them.

When the word spread, would Rizzo protect Rod from him? Would Cy’Baoth’s lip tremble, would he never seen Havla’s gap-toothed smile again? Khiyosh had pulled them away, he remembered. Khiyosh had pulled them away from _him._

Suddenly, Silas’s words from yesterday hit home. Obi-Wan sagged in Khal’s grip. No, the traditionalists wouldn’t accept him but they would put him down if he was a danger. Silas had been ready.

 _“Ad’ika, nayc,”_ Khal was saying, “your _vod’e-.”_

“No,” Obi-Wan whimpered, beginning to struggle, _“no!”_

 _“Ad’ika! Ad’ika, gedet’ye,_ you’re hurting yourself! _Naak, naak, ad’ika…”_

Khal’s voice faded to static as black dots swum in and out of his vision. He could still feel Cerasi’s phantom weight pressing down against his chest. He didn’t mind that he couldn’t breathe. It was only what he deserved.

* * *

_(“Ad’ika_ needs a _mir’baar’ur._ Badly.”

Nezra sighed. “Could’ve told you that at first glance. Poor _di’kut_ takes on the weight of the world every time.”

“...he thinks the _ad’e_ don’t want him here anymore.”

…

_“What?”_

“He’s got it in his mind that they can’t trust him after watching him kill another Young.”

The truth was that he couldn’t trust himself.

“Every time I try to explain the situation to him, he gets a panic attack. And they’re bad, Nez, he _suffocates_ _._ I had to sedate him to get his breathing started again.”

“...isn't it weird that his Force _osik_ let you? I mean, isn’t it supposed to protect him?”

“I have no idea how his Force _osik_ works. If anything, I wish he’d lash _out_ for a change instead of in _._ I’m almost afraid I’m going to do an eval on him and start finding things like bruised organs, internal bleeding, and broken ribs. He doesn’t hurt anyone in these attacks-.”

“Just himself.”

A long silence grew between them.

“He wants to go with us when we leave.”

 _“What?_ Why?”

“You saw how Silas reacted, heard what he said. The _ad’ika_ is counting on him to put him down like a rabid hound.”

They both needed a break after that.

“I don’t know how to explain this to the _ad’e.”_

_“Osik.”)_

* * *

Obi-Wan kept his head bowed, nape bared. Khal had refused to cuff him and the Darksaber no longer wanted to be separated, so by the time footsteps drew near, he’d soaked his tunic through with cold sweat.

“Obi.”

Cerasi’s voice sounded worn thin and full of pain. He’d done that. He’d put that pain there. He kept his eyes focused on the ground, unwilling to raise his head.

Nield exhaled, close enough that heat washed over his skin, raising the flesh. Obi-Wan fought the shiver but he didn’t think he was successful. All he had was fear ringing out in the Force, bright and blaring like the alarms the night Pre had died - the night he’d killed him.

“You always were a stubborn git.”

Obi-Wan couldn’t help flinching then. Nield swore, and he hitched his shoulders higher, trembling. Cerasi was crying. No, that wasn’t right; he didn’t deserve her tears.

“Look,” Nield sighed, sounding exhausted, “it’s only for a little while, okay? It’s- Khiyosh said this is better for everyone.”

It was a sweet-sounding lie and the final nail in his coffin all the same. Nield could be kind; it had only been yesterday when the medics had banded together and joked about their horrendous patients.

Obi-Wan squeezed his eyes shut, unable to focus any longer for the tears welling up.

Cerasi stepped close; he could recognise her smell, even freshly washed. Her hands were kind as they cupped his face, branding him with her touch. She kissed him twice, once over each eyelid.

He suddenly recalled seeing her do the same for a corpse they’d found, half-buried beneath the rubble of a munitions factory. She had later told thamthat had been her brother, the very one they hadn’t been able to find.

She was saying her final goodbyes.

And then Cerasi was gone and Nield was there instead. Dying was easy; living was hard. He didn’t know if he could live without them; he didn’t think it would be worth the try.

Nield caught his chin. Obi-Wan felt like a doll in his hands. He did so want to open his eyes, to see them one last time. Surely, _surely_ it couldn’t hurt? Just one last-.

Nield was kissing him. Obi-Wan jerked, eyes startling open and staring. He remembered this view, of Nield’s short but thick lashes, fluttering shut. There was also the faintest dusting of freckles on his forehead, like secret constellations.

“Come back to us,” Nield breathed against his lips. Obi-Wan choked.

Cerasi was at Nield’s shoulder, still taller, always taller. She’d pulled her hair away from her wet face but her faded magenta nerftail gleamed in the sun. She was gripping Nield’s arm hard enough for the nail marks to show on his skin; Nield didn’t look like he cared.

“Come back to us,” he insisted, “Obi-Wan, you have to come back to us!”

Afterward, he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten onto the dropship. He camed to curled up in a corner, the furthest from the medbay, Khal pressed up beside him.

Cerasi had kissed his eyes. Nield had kissed his mouth. Obi-Wan had done the unthinkable and stolen one last look at them, unyielding and implacable. _They_ were the Young. _They_ would succeed.

…still, though. He couldn’t make head or tail of it. Cerasi had kissed his eyes, and cried. Nield had kissed his lips, and…

No, it was impossible.

And yet…

No.

But before this, he would’ve sworn he’d known every last nuance of Nield’s voice, good and bad, soft and raised. He didn’t think he’d gotten this wrong, and yet it made no sense.

Why would Nield beg him to come back, let alone to _them?_

No, it must have been a misunderstanding.

But- if, and only if, there were the slightest, smallest, most minuscule chance that Nield had meant it…

Obi-Wan pressed his face into his hands so hard it hurt. He couldn’t forget their kisses, though.

“...I won’t stop trying.”

**Author's Note:**

> My first draft of this was radically different; I had a more straightforward, if also more meandering tale to tell. But then Obi’s self-esteem issues hijacked everything and made me throw 20-odd pages out the window. Before I get dragged, 3 has been written and just needs to be edited.
> 
> (also i never said the happy ending was in this part, did i?) 
> 
> [1] From bittodeath’s heartbreaking ‘For a Child’  
> [2] This is a bit of a nod to the marks Obi wore on his back, lightsaber burns from Xanatos taken from fadinglight123's heartwrenching Mandalorian AU 'Through the Narrow Gate'
> 
> As a rule of thumb, I won't reply to comments, but I DO read every single one of them and squee every. single. time. HOWEVER. If you would like a reply, or have a question, or anything of that sort, also feel free to hmu :DDD (except for updates, coz honestly I update faster when I'm not being hounded)


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